Capital Gazette shooting
On June 28, 2018, a mass shooting occurred at the offices of The Capital, a newspaper serving Annapolis, Maryland, United States. The gunman, Jarrod Ramos, killed five employees with a shotgun and injured two others who were trying to escape. Ramos was arrested shortly thereafter. He pleaded guilty but not criminally responsible to 23 charges; in July 2021, a jury found him criminally responsible. It is the deadliest mass shooting in Maryland history.
| Capital Gazette shooting | |
|---|---|
Anne Arundel County Anne Arundel County (Maryland) Anne Arundel County Anne Arundel County (the United States) | |
| Location | 888 Bestgate Road Annapolis, Maryland 21401 U.S. |
| Coordinates | 38°59′39″N 76°32′37″W |
| Date | June 28, 2018 ~2:34 p.m. (EDT) |
Attack type | Mass shooting |
| Weapons | 12-gauge Mossberg 500 pump-action shotgun |
| Deaths | 5 |
| Injured | 2 |
| Perpetrator | Jarrod Ramos |
| Motive | Narcissistic injury, grudge against Capital Gazette for reporting negative information about him |
| Charges | Five counts of first-degree murder; one count of attempted first-degree murder; six counts of first-degree assault; 11 counts of firearm use in commission of a felony or violent crime |
The Capital had published an article in 2011 about Ramos being put on probation for harassing an acquaintance from high school through social media and email. Ramos, angered by the article, brought a defamation lawsuit against the newspaper but a judge later dismissed the suit. Ramos is alleged to have sent enraged letters and messages to The Capital threatening to attack its newsroom and staff, but no legal action was taken after the threats were received.
Capital Gazette Communications, owned by Tribune Publishing through its subsidiary the Baltimore Sun Media Group, publishes the daily newspapers The Capital and the Maryland Gazette and the weekly Crofton-West County Gazette. At the time of the shooting, its offices were located at 888 Bestgate Road in Parole, an unincorporated area of Anne Arundel County just outside Annapolis.