Man attacks newspaper in Annapolis Maryland, killing 5.

Police respond to the scene of the attack in Annapolis. Yahoo News/AP

A man attacked a newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland killing five people before surrendering to police. Yahoo News/GMA. The attacker, a 39 year old man named Jarrod Ramos entered the news offices of the Capital Gazette, the local newspaper. He was armed with a shotgun and smoke grenades and surrendered as soon as the police showed up. Ramos had some kind of history with the paper and was known to them but details haven't been released. Ramos was identified via facial recognition software after the fingerprint machine wasn't able to. Earlier reports that he had mutilated his fingers in order to avoid identification appear to be incorrect.  

My Comment:

I waited to post this as new information was released. There was a lot of incorrect information about this attack and some genuine fake news. As always there were reports of multiple shooters and speculation about the motives of the attacker. In this case there was also the odd story of the suspect damaging his fingerprints, though that appears to be false. 

The media was very quick to blame this on Republicans/Conservatives. Both President Trump and pundit Milo Yiannopoulos were blamed for this attack before any information was released. Trump was blamed for "making" people be anti-media while Yiannopoulos was blamed for a joke he made about "right wing death squads" privately to a journalist, who later published it. It seems very clear that that narrative was false. And even if this had been a political motive, I doubt Trump or Yiannopoulos would have had much to do with it. People hated the media long before either of them were popular or in power. 

Instead of political, the motive for this case seems to be personal. News outlets are reporting that he had sued the news paper in 2012 for defamation. That case was dismissed due to a lack of evidence and not qualifying for defamation. Apparently it had something to do with the newspapers reporting on Ramos' harassment case where he plead guilty. Ramos appears to have held a grudge since then and finally took it out on the news paper. That suggests that pure psychotic revenge was the only motive. 

One wonders how this attack was allowed to happen. Ramos was known to the newspaper and had a guilty plea for a harassment charge. He was also apparently making threats on social media. With his past conviction of harassment he was probably not barred from owning guns as that is a misdemeanor in Maryland but you would think that he would have been investigated for making threats. Was this another "known wolf"?

You would also think that there would be some security at the newspaper. I know papers are a dying business but security has to be a priority right? Even before the news went off the deep end and pissed off half the country, they have always had crazies like Ramos making threats. You would think that there would be someone with a gun there but apparently not. And it's not like Maryland has good CCW laws, it's a "may issue" state with a de facto ban. This attack was very quick but an armed person might have saved a couple of lives. Then again, maybe not, as the police were reportedly there in 60 seconds anyways. 

This attack also doesn't play into the gun control narrative. Instead of scary black assault rifle this attacker used a shotgun. He managed to kill five people and if he had decided to keep fighting after the cops showed up he could have killed more. Since the man stopped when police showed up I doubt what weapon he used would have mattered. He probably would have killed as many people with a bolt action rifle or revolver. 

In the end though, this attack will go down in history as a minor one. Everyone was looking for a political motive in this case but it didn't exist and since Ramos didn't use an rifle it's not useful for gun control either. My guess is that this case will disappear very quickly.