Jarrod Ramos is a lunatic; a very dangerous lunatic.
This much was proven in a horrifying way yesterday when he launched a ferocious gun attack on Maryland’s Capital Gazette newspaper, killing five people.
Yet the signs of his dark, deluded, psychotic state were all there for everyone to see for years before he unleashed his sickening rampage.
In 2011, the Gazette published an investigation exposing Ramos for his appalling treatment of a young woman who had once been his former high school classmate.
Jarrod Ramos is a dangerous lunatic. This much was proven on Thursday, but the signs of his dark, deluded, psychotic state were all there for everyone to see for years before
It appeared a week after he pleaded guilty to criminal harassment for which he received a suspended jail sentence and probation.
That harassment began with a simple Facebook message thanking the woman, who he hadn’t seen or had any contact for over a decade, ‘for being the only person ever to say hello or be nice to him in school’.
But it quickly escalated into a relentless, horrendous stalking campaign that saw his poor victim forced to change her name, move three times and finally leave the state.
Ramos bombarded her with menacing emails, called her vile names, and told her to kill herself.
He even contacted her employer to make horrible, untrue claims that led to her being suspended and then let go.
She called the police, and briefly, he stopped harassing her. But then he started again, nastier than before.
The woman told a TV reporter that she had grown so frightened of Ramos she had to move THREE times and now slept with a gun, adding: ‘He’s a f***ing nut job.’
Ramos bombarded a former classmate with menacing emails, called her vile names, and told her to kill herself. She called the police. The woman was so frightened of Ramos she had to move THREE times and now slept with a gun, adding: ‘He’s a f***ing nut job.’ She told a former police official that Ramos ‘will be your next mass shooter’
She told a former police official that Ramos ‘will be your next mass shooter’.
Her warnings turned out to be absolutely correct, yet were tragically ignored.
Ramos sued the Capital Gazette after their article appeared, and also sued a number of its staff including the editor, Tom Marquadt.
He also began making constant death threats online against Gazette staff, again including Marquardt who described him as the most threatening person he had encountered in his entire journalism career.
Marquardt said after yesterday’s massacre. “I said during that time, ‘This guy is crazy enough to come in and blow us all away.” I was seriously concerned he would threaten us with physical violence.’ I even told my wife, “We have to be concerned. This guy could really hurt us.’
The threats were again reported to police but no action was taken.
Police Chief Timothy Altomare, when asked why Ramos hadn’t been picked up, told The Today Show: ‘We were aware of him. This is the greatest free society on earth. Conduct had to cross certain lines for us to intervene.’
What ARE those lines, exactly?
Ramos’s Twitter account used the handle @EricHartleyFrnd, the name of one of the Gazette’s former staff reporters Eric Hartley who wrote the original story about him. The profile picture is a photo of Mr Hartley, who now works for another newspaper, with a Japanese anime ‘sacrifice’ symbol photo-shopped onto his forehead.
It means that whomever is branded with it will be ‘ritualistically murdered.’
One of Ramos’s tweets read: ‘I’ll enjoy seeing @capgaznews cease publication, but it would be nicer to see Hartley and Marquardt cease breathing.’
Another tweet read: ‘Eric Hartley knows from experience, but doesn’t appreciate how bad it can get. Journalist Hell awaits.’
He sent a series of threatening tweets like this one, none of which the police thought crossed the line to the point they did a thing
None of this cross any of your lines, Chief Altomare?
‘Some people have said the threats were veiled,’ said Marquardt, ‘but it was pretty clear to us. They weren’t vague to me at all. I felt threatened the whole time.’
Marquardt said Capital Gazette staff were shown a photo of Ramos years ago and warned if they ever saw him to call 911.
Police today confirmed threats from Ramos were sent to the newspaper on social media as recently as Thursday.
‘There were general threats towards the Capital Gazette,’ said Bill Krampf, deputy police chief of Anne Arundel County. ‘They indicated violence.’
Now, Ramos, 38, has acted on those threats, with extreme violence – bursting into the newsroom yesterday and opening fire with a pump-action shotgun.
As a consequence, five people are dead, their lives snuffed out by a vicious madman intent on revenge.
Once again, America reels from yet another mass shooting.
Now five people are dead, their lives snuffed out by a vicious madman intent on revenge who was able to buy a shotgun. Once again, America reels from yet another mass shooting
Once again, it is utterly incomprehensible to any rational human being why this hideous man wasn’t stopped before he committed his outrage.
Once again, it is almost beyond belief that someone like Ramos was able, as police confirmed today, to legally buy his weapon within the last 18 months.
What more did he have to do to prevent himself from being able to lawfully buy a firearm to commit the murder he’d been repeatedly threatening to commit?
President Trump insists the real problem with America’s gun violence epidemic isn’t guns but mental illness.
Yet here was an absolute lunatic making escalating public death threats against myriad people, yet still being able to buy a gun to act on them.
My rage this time though is not solely about the absurd weakness of America’s gun laws.
It actually lies more with the abject failure of the US justice system to properly punish a man who had terrorised an innocent, vulnerable young woman in such a despicable way that she felt forced to SLEEP with a gun to protect herself from him.
As it transpired, she had very good reason to fear for her life.
Ramos should have been jailed for a very long time for what he did to that woman.
Instead, the man she described as a ‘f***ing nut job’ and ‘your next mass shooter’ was allowed to walk free and carry on threatening and harassing other people until he finally shot up a newsroom.
That is the real disgrace here.
That is the real shame.