The suspect in Thursday's deadly newsroom shooting had been reported to the police on at least two occasions by journalists at the paper, and that a restraining order had been taken out against him, according to a former Capital Gazette employee.
Jarrod Ramos, 38, sued The Gazette and two of its journalists in 2012 for defamation over a July 2011 article about Ramos harassing and threatening a former High School classmate on Facebook.
“He seems to think there’s some sort of relationship here that does not exist,” said the woman in a harassment case she filed against Ramos. “I tried to back away from it, and he just started getting angry and vulgar to the point I had to tell him to stop.”
After his case against The Gazette was thrown out, a Twitter account associated with Ramos was used to send hostile, threatening tweets at Gazette employees and the judge in his case. The account had remained dormant from January 2016 until Thursday - minutes before the shooting, when he wrote "Fuck you, leave me alone @judgemoylanfrnd" - to an unused Twitter account which appears to have been created by Ramos in 2016.
The MD shooter, Jarrod Ramos aka @EricHartleyFrnd, hasn't Tweeted since January 2016, until this Tweet minutes before the shooting. pic.twitter.com/kgdBzlGfQc
Police notified
Former Gazette employee Joshua Stewart tweeted Thursday night "I can say with complete certainty that a @capgaznews employee had previously told @AACOPD [Anne Arundel Police] about concerns regarding the suspect in today’s shooting on #Annapolis," and that "in addition to warning the @AACOPD about the suspect, another @capgaznews employee warned the @AnnapolisPD [Annapolis Police] as well."
I can say with complete certainty that a @capgaznews employee had previously told @AACOPD about concerns regarding the suspect in today’s shooting on #Annapolis
I also just found out that in addition to warning the @AACOPD about the suspect, another @capgaznews employee warned the @AnnapolisPD as well.
In another tweet, Stewart says that another reporter at The Gazette was granted a restraining order:
In 2013 a @capgaznews reporter got a restraining order against the suspect in today's #Annapolis shooting. The reporter, a friend of mine, said that he was harassing
Five people after Ramos allegedly stormed The Gazette on Thursday. Despite having damaged his fingertips, making fingerprint identification impossible, he was identified after Thursday's shooting using facial...