The five victims of the shooting at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland on Thursday were identified by police earlier tonight.
The victims were determined to be Rob Hiaasen, Gerald Fischman, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendi Winters.
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Police have identified the victims of today’s shooting in Annapolis, Md. Their names and titles, per CG website:
Rob Hiaasen, assistant editor
— Jesse Byrnes (@jessebyrnes) June 29, 2018
Gerald Fischman, editorial page editor
John McNamara, editor/reporter
Rebecca Smith, sales assistant
Wendi Winters, special publications
Police responded to the shooting on Thursday afternoon and evacuated the remaining staff members out of the building.
The shooter, who was apprehended at the scene, was identified as 38-year-old Jarrod Ramos.
CBS News reported Ramos allegedly used a shotgun to commit the shooting and had smoke grenades and flash-bang grenades on his person at the time of his arrest.
Author Carl Hiaasen reacted to the passing of his brother, an assistant editor at the paper, on Facebook on Thursday night.
“I am devastated and heartsick to confirm the loss of my wonderful brother Rob today in the mass shooting in the newsroom at the Annapolis Capital Gazette,” Hiaasen wrote. “Rob was an editor and columnist at the paper, and one of the most gentle and funny people I’ve ever known. He spent his whole gifted career as a journalist, and he believed profoundly in the craft and mission of serving the public’s right to know the news.”
“We called him Big Rob because he was so tall, but it was his remarkable heart and humor that made him larger than all of us,” he continued.
William Krampf, the acting chief of police for Anne Arundel County, said in a press conference that the shooting was a planned attack. Ramos reportedly damaged the tips of his fingers prior to the shooting in an attempt to avoid being identified.
Gazette police reporter Phil Davis tweeted the events of the shooting as they took place inside the newsroom, saying Ramos shot through a glass door and opened fire.
“[It] was like a war zone,” Davis said in an interview with the Gazette after the shooting.
“I’m a police reporter. I write about this stuff — not necessarily to this extent, but shootings and death — all the time,” Davis 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.”
Photo credit: Alex Wroblewski / Getty Images
