Maryland newspaper shooting suspect IDed: report

The suspect in Thursday’s shooting at an Annapolis, Md., newspaper has been identified as 38-year-old Jarrod Ramos, NBC News reported.

Ramos sued the Capital Gazette in 2012 for defamation, according to an NBC News producer, who reported that his case was thrown out by a judge.

NBC News: The shooting suspect’s name is JARROD RAMOS. 38 years old. He was identified by multiple law enforcement officials to NBC News. He had sued the paper in 2012 for defamation. Case was tossed by a judge. @Tom_Winter @MSNBC

— Jesse Rodriguez (@JesseRodriguez) June 29, 2018

Police said during an earlier press conference Thursday evening that the suspect, whom they only identified as a while male in his late 30s, was a Maryland resident.

Five people died and more were wounded when police say a lone suspect opened fire at the Capital Gazette’s newsroom in Annapolis.

The company publishes several local publications at the site including The Capital and The Maryland Gazette newspapers.

Ramos sued the newspaper for defamation in 2012 after The Capital published an article reporting on Ramos’ conviction for criminal harassment.

A report of the trial in the Capital Gazette noted that Ramos attempted to represent himself, but failed to impress a judge who wrote that his suit showed a lack of understanding of defamation law.

“A lawyer would almost certainly have told him not to proceed with this case,” the court wrote in the opinion, according to the Gazette. “It reveals a fundamental failure to understand what defamation law is and, more particularly, what defamation law is not.”

The 2011 story for which Ramos sued the newspaper reported at the time that Ramos, then 31, was previously employed by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for six years and held a degree in computer science.

A Twitter account bearing Ramos’ name and an image of a Capital Gazette staff writer that remained active Thursday night linked to an email dated 2011 in which Ramos defended himself to the “reader” against how the paper described his behavior in the lawsuit.

-Updated 9:06 p.m.