© Alex Wroblewski/Getty ImagesPolice respond to a shooting at the office of the Capital Gazette newspaper on June 28, 2018 in Annapolis, Maryland.
A shooter is in custody, police said.
"This was a targeted attack on the Capital Gazette," said Anne Arundel County Deputy Police Chief William Krampf. "This person was prepared today to come in. He was prepared to shoot people."
The suspect is Jarrod W. Ramos, a 38-year-old Laurel man with a longstanding dispute with the Capital, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation.
On Thursday evening, federal and local law enforcement officials blocked off with crime-scene tape the Laurel apartment complex listed as the address for Ramos, whose dispute with the Capital began in July 2011 when a columnist at the paper covered a criminal harassment case against him.
In 2012, Ramos brought a defamation suit against the columnist and the paper's former editor and publisher. In 2015, Maryland's second-highest court upheld a ruling in favor of the Capital Gazette and a former reporter who were accused by Ramos of defamation.
Police said a shotgun was used in the incident. They said officers did not exchange gunfire with the suspect, who was now being interrogated. They said officers had recovered "smoke grenades" used by the suspect in the building, located at 888 Bestgate Road. About 170 people were inside at the time of the shooting, police said.
© Joshua McKerrow / Capital GazetteThe scene outside 888 Bestgate, where an active shooter was in the Capital Gazette Newspaper office / newsroom, with heavy police, fire, and rescue presence.
Phil Davis, a Capital Gazette crime reporter who was in the building at the time of the shooting, said multiple people were shot, as others - himself included - hid under their desks. He said there was a lone male gunman.
"Gunman shot through the glass door to the office and opened fire on multiple employees. Can't say much more and don't want to declare anyone dead, but it's bad," Davis wrote on Twitter as he waited to be interviewed by police.
"There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you're under your desk and then hear the gunman reload."
© Phil Davis/Twitter
"I'm a police reporter. I write about this stuff - not necessarily to this extent, but shootings and death - all the time," he said. "But as much as I'm going to try to articulate how traumatizing it is to be hiding under your desk, you don't know until you're there and you feel helpless."
Davis said he and others were still hiding under their desks when the shooter stopped firing. Police then arrived and surrounded the shooter, Davis said.
Authorities said police responded to the scene within a minute. "If they were not there as quickly as they were it could have been a lot worse," Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley said.
The attacker had mutilated his fingers in an apparent attempt to make it harder to identify him, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity. Krampf said he had no such information. Krampf said police had identified threats to the Capital made on social media as recently as Thursday, and were trying to identify their source.
Officials at Maryland Shock Trauma Center confirmed the hospital was treating at least one victim. County Executive Steve Schuh said others were being treated at Anne Arundel Medical Center. Loren Farquhar, a medical center spokeswoman, said the hospital received two patients, both with minor injuries not from gunfire. One was discharged and another is expected to be discharged soon, she said.
Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were on the scene in Annapolis to provide support to local law enforcement, said Amanda Hils, a spokeswoman for the federal agency.
President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter that he had been briefed on the shooting. "My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. Thank you to all of the First Responders who are currently on the scene," Trump wrote.
Josh McKerrow, a photographer for 14 years at The Capital, had covered Induction Day at the Naval Academy at sunrise Thursday. He was driving home to celebrate his daughter's birthday when Capital editor Rick Hutzell called him from out of town.
"He said he'd heard there had been a shooting, and he couldn't get in touch with anyone in the newsroom," McKerrow said. Then he heard sirens. "My heart sank and I knew."
Police in SWAT gear and with assault rifles cordoned off the area round the newsroom and shutdown Bestgate Road. Outside the police tape, McKerrow and reporter Chase Cook called and texted their friends and colleagues, trying to get answers.
Jimmy DeButts, an editor at the Capital Gazette, wrote on Twitter that he was "devastated and heartbroken." He said he could not speak about the shooting, but praised the work of his newspaper.
"There are no 40 hour weeks, no big paydays - just a passion for telling stories from our community," DeButts wrote. "We keep doing more with less. We find ways to cover high school sports, breaking news, tax hikes, school budgets & local entertainment. We are there in times of tragedy. We do our best to share the stories of people, those who make our community better. Please understand, we do all this to serve our community."
Gov. Larry Hogan, on Twitter, wrote, "Absolutely devastated to learn of this tragedy in Annapolis." He said he was in contact with Schuh, and that Maryland State Police were on the scene assisting county police.
House Speaker Michael E. Busch has represented Annapolis since 1987 and said The Capital is "the voice of the community."
Even with a shrinking staff, Busch said, "they knew the pulse of the community and had a lot of influence on what took place.
"This is a shocker," Busch said. "Over the years, a lot of these people become friends. They do their job, you do your job, and you respect them for it. A lot of good writers have come out of there."
The Gazette is not the only business in the building where the shooting occurred. There are 30 tenants in the building, including five others on the first floor with The Capital. They include accountants, lawyers, financial and medical offices. The newspaper has been in the building since 2015, according to CoStar, a real estate information company. They have 5,000 square feet of offices.
Aaron Smith and Randall Fisher of the Fisher Law Office were on the fourth floor in the same building as the Gazette at the time of the shooting. They didn't hear or see anything and didn't know anything was going on until Smith received a text from a colleague saying there was an apparent shooting, he said.
They flipped a desk over in front of the door to the office and stayed there until SWAT officers arrived. They then walked out of the building with their hands on their heads, like everyone else in the building, Fisher said.
Bethany Clasing, who works in second floor of the building, said she heard a single gunshot and then heard the police yell, "Get down! Get down! Don't move!"
Rayne Foster, of Frost and Associates LLC, said a plainclothes officer came to her fourth-floor office suite and told the receptionist to lock the doors because of an active shooter, and she quickly gathered people together.
Some employees began taking off high heels preparing to flee the building. Others hid. One employee pulled two handguns out of his desk drawer for self defense, she said. Once more police arrived, they all began filing out of the office.Foster said she and her employees kept trying to hold hands to comfort each other, but were told by police to keep their hands in the air.
"You see it on the news," Foster said of people walking out of buildings after mass shootings, "and you think, 'These poor people.' You wonder how they feel. Now I know."
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