Maryland shooting: Five dead after targeted attack at The Capital Gazette's newsroom
The suspect described as a white man in his 30s who lives in Maryland fired through a glass door, looked for victims and then sprayed the newsroom of the Capital Gazette newspaper group in Annapolis with gunfire, police and a witness said.
Phil Davis, a Capital Gazette crime reporter, said he was hiding under his desk along with other newspaper employees when the shooter stopped firing, the Capital Gazette reported on its website.
“The newsroom looked like a war zone, I don't know why he stopped,” said Davis, who later said he was safe. "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."
Police officers in the Maryland capital of Annapolis responded within a minute to a 911 call about a shooting in progress and apprehended the suspect hiding under a desk, authorities said.
"His intent was to cause harm," William Krampf, Anne Arundel County's acting police chief, told a news conference. "This was a targeted attack on the Capital Gazette." He did not say why the gunman have targeted the newspaper or its employees.
None of the victims or the suspect have been identified by authorities.
Capital Gazette, owned by the Baltimore Sun, runs multiple newspapers out of its Annapolis office and the group includes one of the oldest newspapers in the United States, The Gazette, which traces its origins back to 1727.
The company, part of the Tronc Inc media group, publishes a stable of newspapers in and around Annapolis, home of the U.S. Naval Academy. The papers have thrived by focusing on local news in the shadows of two much larger competitors, the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun.
Law enforcement in Baltimore and New York City deployed extra officers to the office of the New York Times and other major media outlets as a precaution, authorities said.
U.S. President Donald Trump has also tweeted on the shooting.
Prior to departing Wisconsin, I was briefed on the shooting at Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. Thank you to all of the First Responders who are currently on the scene.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2018
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said on Twitter: "A violent attack on innocent journalists doing their job is an attack on every American."
As a presidential candidate and after his election, Trump has repeatedly criticized the press, referring to several major news organizations as "fake news" and calling a group that included the New York Times, CNN and CBS "the enemy of the American people."
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