Shooter in the newsroom
When mass murders happen, there are usually three stories.
The first is the shooting itself and the violent ending of innocent lives.
The second is the story about the story, told by press and pundits before they know much of anything at all. That second story strongly tends to have a strongly political angle in which the opposition is cast in the role of the villain.
The third story reflects upon the first two, and that’s the sort of essay I’m writing now.
These facts rather quickly became known about the Annapolis shooting: the perp had a longstanding (beginning in 2011) beef with the Capitol Gazette, the newspaper whose office he entered yesterday and killed five people. The paper had published a story about his harassing a woman he knew, and he had sued them for libel and lost (his case had no merit at all; their story was true). After that he also ranted about it all and threatened them online for years, so much so that police had investigated him in 2013, although they were unable to gather enough evidence to charge him.
It is reported that he specifically targeted his victims, and although that may generally be so, I doubt it was true of all of them since one of the dead was a recent hire who had worked in sales.
And in no surprise whatsoever, the left and many journalists have taken the opportunity to blame Donald Trump (see this) for causing this shooting, despite its obvious genesis in events that have zero to do with Trump, and despite the seemingly complete lack of political interest expressed by the perp at any point, then or now.
It quickly emerged that this was “just” a psychopathic crackpot who finally turned extremely violent after simmering for years in the vicious stew of his own rage.
What can be done about people such as this? (I’m talking about the shooter, not the journalists). I don’t know. Most harassing, angry psychopaths do not turn violent but instead continue to engage in more petty undertakings. But some do end up killing people. The Annapolis shooting wasn’t a case in which, on hearing of the murders, everyone ever connected with the newsroom wondered who could possibly have done such a thing. Instead, this was a case in which the former editor had seen the strong possibility of violence, long before the shooting occurred:
“He waged a one-person attack on anything he could muster in court against the Capital,” Tom Marquardt, the newspaper’s editor and publisher until 2012, told the Los Angeles Times in a phone interview.
“I said during that time, ‘This guy is crazy enough to come in and blow us all away,’” Marquardt said, adding that he and other newspaper officials had fretted over how to stop Ramos’ harassment. He even kept a file on Ramos for years after leaving the paper…
As he spoke to The Times, Marquardt’s voice grew tense as he recalled his fear of Ramos, and how he’d felt powerless to do anything to stop the harassment.
“If it’s him, I’m gonna feel … responsible for this,” Marquardt said. “I pray it’s not him.”
But of course it was him.
And yet despite all that foreknowledge, nothing was done to stop the shooter. Civil commitment is hard to accomplish and usually of short duration, although it probably would have been appropriate. The police couldn’t arrest him because he hadn’t done enough yet. There doesn’t seem to have been an armed guard posted at the newspaper, which also might have been in order. And either no one on the staff was armed or whoever was armed didn’t have enough time to react.
RIP.
The media was in a blame Trump frenzy this morning. It’s all trumps fault because he criticizes and ridicules the media.
This reminds me of the Virginia Tech shooting by Seung-Hui Cho. The sons of a friend went to high school with Cho. This friend said everybody knew Cho was crazy (his word) and he frightened people. People complained to the authorities but nothing was done.
Armed police were dispatched to guard the entrance of the New York Times last night. There were reports of similar actions at newspapers in other cities. Paranoid much?
Apparently, they believe their own narrative.
Not trying to sound paranoid (I know, I’m failing at that) but a 60 second response time by the authorities?
Holy crap. Was there a precinct station or a cop convention next door?
I’ve been wondering to what extent it’s in the interest of the left – by which I mean Democrats and everyone leftish plus the mainstream media — to ignore obvious ticking time bombs like this guy and Nicolas Cruz, the Parkland shooter.
They love it when some half-baked psycho goes off and kills a buncha people. Even if there is no remote connection to Trump, Republicans, conservatives and the NRA, we will be blamed.
Count on it.
But if a Bernie Bro attempts to knock off as many Republican congressman as he can at a charity baseball game with something which could be called an assault rifle, we won’t hear of it again.
That man was James Hodgkinson. I had to look it up. I had forgotten his name.
Aside from the loss of life which has always bothered me and will always bother me (even if they are people I don’t like), I am growing increasingly angry and disgusted at the near orgiastic feel of the media as they wait for the confirmation of their wildest dreams…
That the shooter will be:
-White and male
-A member of a Right Wing organization
-Wearing a MAGA hat
-Christian
It used to be like a sick drinking game. Take a drink every time a News Anchor speculates on the identity and intimates how it could definitely, possibly be a disgruntled white man/christian/militia member/Trump supporter.
I think they’d pop an aneurysm in the throws of orgasm if their dream came true. Disgusting, ignorant, petty, shallow people. Each victim, left wing or right wing, had family and loved ones.
It just infuriates me. Sorry, I’m venting.
This was apparently another example of a known nutjob threatening a particular workplace. I am retired now, but if I worked in such a location where there was a known threat- I would damned sure be packing a firearm at all times unless I had good faith in the security measures.
Oh for Heaven’s sake, just keep the doggone doors locked. Why should there be walk-in access to a local newsrag?
Think of it like a border: don’t just let anyone walk in.
Fortunately, his name is Ramos, and he sure looks like a rather grubby Latino.
Did he ever hold a job, or was he one of the live-off-others of which we have made so many, just like Merkel with her Muzzies.
And while we’re at it, let us recall the psychiatry “reform” movement that started, as many very bad things did, in the 1960s. Don’t keep them in “asylums”; give them phenothiazenes, let them get horrible dystonic reactions (usually permanent), and let them have the streets and their civil rights. We are now mobbed by them as the “homeless”.
Psychiatry is chronically Leftist. Avoid them if you can. My brother is one, and he is nuts.
Cicero:
Actually, the movement you describe was initially libertarian, and although liberals became part of it, it has continued to be championed by libertarians. I have chronicled the story here.
As far as the door at the newspaper is concerned, do you really think a locked office door would stop a gunman? I don’t think it would slow him down all that much, either. It is not clear, either, whether the door to this office was locked or not prior to the shooting. It is reported that the shooter shot through a glass door to the office, which indicates to me that it might have been locked, although I have no idea whether it was.
This is a little off the post topic, but here we have Columbine, the Navy yard shooter, and this guy all using shotguns.
Remember how we were all supposed to blame the AR-15 rifle for these types of shootings? Even Col. Ralph Peters wrote a NY Post piece where he waxed nostalgic for his dear old dad’s hunting shotgun, and then claimed that these weapons of war, AR-15’s, had no place in society.
The reality is that nothing in common use can compare to the deadliness of a 12 gage with the “right” ammo.
In WWI, the US introduced the shotgun into trench warfare. The Germans were so upset at its effectiveness that they claimed a violation of Geneva conventions and promised to execute every US soldier that was caught with one. The Geneva body actually cited the Germans for violating the conventions with their executions.
Fractal Rabbit: And just as disgusting is when, after yet another shooter is not a white/Christian/Trump-voting/NRA-member male, the story disappears. Yes, I know there’s some residual blaming of Trump today – because lefties blame Trump for everything, including jock itch and bird poop on a freshly washed car – in reality, the story has already been dropped into a dark hole. I was watching it on a news-ish board yesterday, on which there was constant chatter; as soon as the facts came out and there was nothing the left could, at this time, reasonably politicize, it was gone.
The guy was Hispanic; the motive was not even remotely related to Trump or conservative politics (a nutjob furious, years after the fact, that a newspaper published public-domain facts about a creepy crime he had really committed); and the weapon was not an “assault rifle.” Nothing to see here, folks. Maybe the next one will be wearing a MAGA hat and an NRA pin and have a cross engraved on his AR-15.
Postscript: Eventually, there will be some kind of shooting committed by someone with conservative leanings and who is not obviously an off-his-meds loony tunes type. Chances are, it will occur in context of a situation instigated by a violent lefty group or mob, which will get downplayed or denied outright in the news. But odds are, they’ll have to wait a while for their while male Christian shooter.
What lefties do not get is that when they expect righties to go on shooting sprees over politics, they are projecting themselves; at some level, they are willing to accept or even commit violence done in the name of politics. They assume that we are, too. By fundamental nature, lefties consider laws to be optional, something that can be applied or ignored on a case-by-case basis. Conservatives tend to be rule-of-law types who obey laws and expect others to do so as well. Lefties don’t get that we aren’t like them.
I think there is little that can stop crazies from doing crazy. But a good place to start for the left (and some on the right) is to stop dehumanizing those who do not share their world view. Not holding my breath, since the left in particular are hell bent on labeling everyone not on the left nazi, deplorable clingers.
I’m with Fractal Rabbit in finding the 60 second police response time unlikely, even if there was a police station next door to the paper’s office. The lesson so many fail to learn is each of us is the first responder when it comes to our own safety. Samuel Colt made us all potentially equal.in that regard.
I find it annoying that the press feels a need to go with wall-to-wall hysterical coverage when a local tragedy like this occurs. All they are doing is amplifying noise for ratings and their perceived need to push the Democrat’s point of view. Does it even matter to anyone more than fifty miles away?
Why don’t they cover the ongoing daily black-on-black killing that goes on in Chicago? The national black-on-black murder rate that is ten times the white-on-white rate? That’s a real problem that should be covered and some way found to end it. To ask the question is to anwer it, sadly.
I agree with Parker that when it comes to our own safety, we are each our own first responder. Unlike Parker and Fractal Rabbit though, I don’t have a problem with reports of the 60 second response time.
Once the call went out I’m sure every cop car in the city headed there with lights and sirens blazing. In a city the size of Annapolis there very likely could have been a cop car within a couple of blocks, which could easily have arrived within a minute.
Chris B,
Annapolis is twice the size of my hometown. And you couldn’t get a 60 second response time here unless the police are right there.
60 seconds is FAST. Extremely, for any kind of response unless the police/EMT/security are actually in the facility. And even then… Think about it: A reasonably healthy adult male can run the 100 yard dash in about 15 seconds.
But before the cops make that run, a 911 call has to come in, information (location, what is going on) has to be taken from someone on the phone likely in a panic, and then responders have to be sent.
Is it possible? Yes, of course. But circumstances have to be lined up just right, very fortuitously: two or three cars within a block (or less) and the 911 call has to be very efficient, very quick or no matter how close they are, they won’t know where to go and what they are heading in to.
As someone who has responded to 911 calls (LEO) as soon as I heard 60 seconds, my BS radar tripped.
Fractal Rabbit — Apparently they had just run an active shooter exercise the week before. It’s almost as if they were waiting for this.
Paul in Boston — You know better than that! Black on black shooting does not count. Black on white shooting does not count. Only white on white shooting and white on black shooting counts. The first two don’t fit the narrative, y’know.
The worlds is descending into madness and nobody seems to notice.
Oh, well. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!
Richard Saunders,
What?! Last week? Strange coincidence. Still, 60 seconds is crazy fast and I don’t think one drill the week prior will account for that.
Fractal Rabbit- I guess I agree, depending on when the 60 seconds starts. I was thinking of from when the first squad car received the call. I was a police officer myself in the ‘70’s (Detroit). In those days it was a matter of pride who could get there first (“man with a gun,” “armed robbery in progress”, etc.). If it was in my own squad car area there was often someone else who had beaten us there within a minute.
If you are measuring from when the first call came in it’s a different story I admit, especially today.
Chris B-
Detroit? I’m just a small town guy. It must have been something! Many of the calls I get are to addresses near places I played hide and seek as a kid, to deal with people I went to school with.
I note how some of the “journalists” commenting on this massacre manage, in the course of their comments, to pontificate about just how noble their “profession” is.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of examples to counter that claim of nobility and truth, including the story out today of the Springfield, Mass reporter–of 21 years experience–who had to resign, after tweeting out the “fake news” that the shooter walked into the newspaper’s office wearing a MAGA hat that he dropped on the floor just prior to opening up with his shotgun, and that that hat was left behind (one presumes to be found by the police).
I am also reminded about how the MSM somehow deliberately turned Hispanic George Zimmerman, the guy who shot Trevon Martin, into a white dude, and their perpetuation of the Michael Brown “hands up, don’t shoot” fiction-with all the harm that lie has caused.
Postscript: Eventually, there will be some kind of shooting committed by someone with conservative leanings and who is not obviously an off-his-meds loony tunes type. Chances are, it will occur in context of a situation instigated by a violent lefty group or mob, which will get downplayed or denied outright in the news. But odds are, they’ll have to wait a while for their while male Christian shooter.
The Leftist alliance may have to wait due to lack of assassin assets but the Deep State can find as many white harveys as they want to serve as the public face of the assassination. That’s the benefit of having funded programs for training of brainwashed assassins and death squads, which Americans never knew existed in the Deep State.
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