ANNAPOLIS, Md.: A man armed with a shotgun and smoke grenades burst into a newspaper office in the US city of Annapolis on Thursday, killing five people in what police described as a "targeted attack." Officials said the shooting at the Capital Gazette newspaper was carried out by a white adult male resident of Maryland state who was being questioned in custody.
There were five fatalities and two superficial injuries, the acting police chief of Anne Arundel county, Bill Krampf, told a news conference in Maryland's capital. The Baltimore Sun -- which owns the Capital Gazette -- named Rob Hiaasen, the paper's assistant editor, who mentored young journalists and wrote in a "wryly observant" style, as one of the victims of the shooting.
Krampf said that police did not yet know the shooter's motive, but "we know that there were threats sent to the Gazette through social media." "We're trying to confirm what account that was and we're trying to confirm who actually sent them," Krampf added. US media identified the suspected shooter as Jarrod Ramos, whom the Sun said had a long-running dispute with the newspaper over a 2011 story "that covered a criminal harassment case against him."
Here are the updates of the shooting at Capital Gazette office:
Jun 29, 2018 10:41 (IST)
Police are treating the shooting as a local incident, with no links to terrorism, a law enforcement source told Reuters. Police did not say why the gunman may have targeted the newspaper or its employees.
Jun 29, 2018 08:26 (IST)
Jimmy DeButts, a Capital Gazette journalist, tweeted that he was "devastated & heartbroken. Numb."
Jun 29, 2018 08:26 (IST)
US media identified the suspected shooter as Jarrod Ramos, whom the Sun said had a long-running dispute with the newspaper over a 2011 story "that covered a criminal harassment case against him."
Jun 29, 2018 08:25 (IST)
The Baltimore Sun -- which owns the Capital Gazette -- named Rob Hiaasen, the paper's assistant editor, who mentored young journalists and wrote in a "wryly observant" style, as one of the victims of the shooting.
Jun 29, 2018 08:25 (IST)
A reporter for the daily, which has roots dating back to the early eighteenth century, tweeted a chilling account of how the "gunman shot through the glass door to the office and opened fire on multiple employees." "There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you're under your desk and then hear the gunman reload," crime reporter Phil Davis said.
