Jarrod Ramos, the accused gunman in the Capital Gazette mass shooting, bore a long grudge against the newspaper after a column described a harassment case against him.
However, the fraught tensions in the United States – and the repeated criticism by President Trump and some others of the news media – have some people wondering about Jarrod W. Ramos’s politics and whether he is a Republican or Democrat. The answer: He was listed as an unaffiliated voter in Maryland records, and, although he had a few tweets mentioning politicians (including one referring to Trump), the vast majority of his online comments were disturbed and nonsensical trolling of various Maryland journalists and court officials. It’s not clear whether he supported any politicians.
Thus far, it appears that Ramos’s motive was part of a longer campaign of harassment against people at the newspaper dating to the harassment case. The police chief, however, has said it will take time to piece together the exact motive for the rampage, which left five newsroom employees dead and others injured.
The five victims have been identified as Rob Hiaasen, Gerald Fischman, Wendi Winters, Rebecca Smith and John McNamara. There is a GoFundMe page to help the newspaper and its journalists.
Here’s what you need to know:
Ramos Was an ‘Unaffiliated Voter’
Jarrod Ramos voter registration
According to Maryland voter records, Jarrod W. Ramos (full name Jarrod Warren Ramos) was listed as an unaffiliated voter. His registration dates to 2005, however.
Ramos Tweeted About Trump & Obama But Most of His Nonsensical Rants Were Not Political
FacebookJarrod Ramos.
Ramos’s Twitter page was filled with rambling comments that were not about politics but rather expressed upset at the paper and various court officials. “Think a credible newspaper could beat me to it? Here’s to exposing cowardly liars everywhere I can. Come and get me,” read his Twitter account. He appears to have had multiple Twitter accounts that contain such rants as “This is a war. There are no grandstands on the battlefield. One does not die royalty, a nobleman, or a commoner. You die as the loser.” Ramos used the photo for a journalist at the Capital newspaper as the profile picture on his Twitter page, which repeatedly trolled that reporter for his previous column on Ramos.
He did tweet about Trump in 2015. The tweet was in reference to a columnist for the Capital Gazette calling Donald Trump, who was then a candidate, “unqualified.”
One old tweet mentioned John McCain and Barack Obama.
A 2014 tweet mentioned Democrats. It was about Kevin Davis, then Baltimore police commissioner, and the new county executive planning to replace the county’s police and fire chiefs. “Surprise? @ChiefKevinDavis was appointed by a Democrat spy and joined at the hip with a C*nt exiting @AnneArundelSAO,” the tweet read.
He mentioned Fox News in a tweet but the Snowden reference in others appears to refer to a Maryland official named Carl Snowden, not Edward Snowden.
You can read his tweets here.
Ramos also once had a website which posted disturbing and nonsensical rants about the newspaper, the defamation case, and the newspaper’s journalists.
Ramos Previously Filed a Defamation Suit Against the Capital Gazette
Actual print edition from when the Capital Gazette wrote about Jarrod Ramos harassing a woman on Facebook; Ramos is today’s suspect in the mass shooting at the newspaper
Clues to a motive can be found in the fact that Jarrod Ramos, of Laurel, Maryland, as noted, had previously filed a defamation lawsuit against the then-Capital newspaper. In 2013, the lawsuit was dismissed, a decision upheld in the Maryland court of appeals in 2015. The Capital and Gazette are sister papers that share a website. Eric Hartley, a former reporter at The Capital, wrote an article in the newspaper with the headline “Jarrod wants to be your friend.” It described a months-long Facebook campaign of harassment by Ramos against a woman he had gone to high school with but didn’t know. The article stated that, per Ramos’s then-lawyer, he has a degree in computer engineering and worked for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for six years.
The victim in that case told WBAL that Ramos was a “nut job” and she says she warned police he would be their next mass shooter.
“He’s a f***** nut job” –woman who says she was stalked by suspect in fatal shooting of 5 people at Capital Gazette in Annapolis…says she warned former police official years ago..”he will be your next mass shooter”
The former publisher of The Capital, Thomas Marquardt, told The Los Angeles Times, that Jarrod Ramos “waged a one-person attack on anything he could muster in court against the Capital. I said during that time, ‘This guy is crazy enough to come in and blow us all away.’”
For years, he’d trolled editors and reporters of The Capital Gazette newspaper on social media and in court filings. The article that upset him detailed his guilty plea to harassment against a woman he went to high school with, and the judge, in finding in favor of the newspaper, stated that “the article was based on public records and Ramos presented no evidence it was inaccurate,” according to an article in the Capital Gazette announcing the decision.
You can read more about Jarrod W. Ramos here:
