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JACKSONVILLE, FL – The Florida widow of slain Microsoft executive Jared Bridegan faced her husband's accused killer for the first time in court Monday before asking for his help to end "this nightmare."
Bridegan's widow and the mother of his two youngest children, Kirsten Bridegan; his brothers Adam and Justin Bridegan; and more than a dozen other family members and friends packed the gallery.
Kirsten Bridegan wept as suspect Henry Tenon, 61, entered the courtroom wearing glasses and a white face mask that covered his gray beard. The hearing lasted less than five minutes.
Tenon's attorney, Matt Bodie, entered a not guilty plea on his behalf to charges of second-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, accessory after the fact and child abuse for the Feb. 16, 2022, killing that left four children fatherless.
MAJOR BREAK IN JARED BRIDEGAN MURDER MYSTERY AFTER EX-WIFE MOVES CROSS-COUNTRY
Judge Roberto Arias adjourned the case to March 21 and set a trial date of July 19.
Kirsten Bridegan, flanked by her family and friends, grew tearful as she read a brief statement in the lobby of the Duval County Courthouse.
FLORIDA EX-WIFE OF SLAIN MICROSOFT EXECUTIVE HIRES CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYER
"Honesty, I think it's still sinking in," the shattered widow said of seeing Tenon for the first time. "To think that might have been one of the last people my husband saw is kind of a hard pill to swallow."
Jared Bridegan was gunned down in front of his then-2-year-old daughter, Bexley, after he was lured from his car by a tire placed in the middle of the road in an upscale suburb of Jacksonville Beach.
FLORIDA POLICE, STATE ATTORNEY ANNOUNCE ARREST IN MURDER OF MICROSOFT EXECUTIVE JARED BRIDEGAN
Court papers say Tenon, who was arrested Jan. 25, carefully plotted the cold-blooded killing of the 33-year-old software developer for six weeks with at least one accomplice. Prosecutors haven’t said whether Tenon pulled the trigger.
During the press conference, Kirsten Bridegan said the family knows that he is only one piece of this puzzle, and they will fight until each person responsible for the heinous murder is brought to justice.
FLORIDA PERSONAL TRAINER CONFIRMS ALLEGED AFFAIR WITH EX-WIFE OF SLAIN MICROSOFT EXEC
In her final statement, she made a plea directly to Tenon.
"Henry, if you get to hear this, please choose now to do the right thing. Please help us receive justice sooner than later," she said. "Please help us in this nightmare that we are living every single day."
She told Tenon's family that they were in her prayers. "We can only imagine the hurt and the pain you must also be feeling," she said.
Fox News Digital was the first to report that Tenon has a surprising connection to Bridegan’s ex-wife Shanna Gardner-Fernandez.
Tenon lived in a home owned by Gardner-Fernandez's husband, Mario Fernandez, at the time of the murder. Tenon also worked as a handyman for Fernandez.
Gardner-Fernandez and Fernandez remain suspects in the slaying, according to law-enforcement sources.
Minutes before Jared Bridegan was repeatedly shot, he had dropped off the now-10-year-old twins he shares with Gardner-Fernandez at her home nearby.
Jared Bridegan and Gardner-Fernandez, who both remarried, had a contentious divorce and continued to battle in court over custody of their twins and finances until his death.
Shortly before their divorce, she asked a tattoo parlor staffer if he knew anyone who could "shut him up," apparently referring to Bridegan.
Melissa Nelson, State Attorney for the Fourth Judicial District, announced the major break in the case at a press conference last month and suggested that more arrests were forthcoming.
"We know that Tenon did not act alone," she said at the time. Tenon is being held without bail.
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The Orlando Sentinel’s extensive coverage of Joel Greenberg started getting attention this week. National news organizations wanted to know more about the disgraced Seminole County tax collector’s connections to Florida U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, who’s under investigation for possible sexual misconduct.
So they turned to a news outlet that still values local news.
The Sentinel produced dozens of stories chronicling Greenberg’s failings as a public servant because the newspaper has dedicated journalists who cover Seminole County. That’s the hallmark of the Sentinel’s work — covering local stories.
Our news staff reports on county commissions and school boards, high school and college sports, restaurants and recipes, live music and local theater, roads and trains. We’re the watchdog that uncovers scandal at the expressway and airport authorities.
That’s why the impending takeover of Tribune Publishing, the Sentinel’s parent company, by the notorious hedge fund Alden Global Capital feels like an existential moment for our newspaper’s future.
Alden’s history with newspaper ownership is akin to a biblical plague of locusts — it devours newsroom resources to maximize profits, leaving ruin in its wake.
But more on that shortly.
Because we’re feeling more hopeful that the Sentinel and Tribune Publishing might be rescued from a future under Alden’s thumb.
Wealthy potential investors, who appear to appreciate more than just the financial value of newspapers, have taken an interest in Tribune and may join forces to make a counter-offer to Alden.
They include hotel executive Stewart Bainum, who originally wanted to buy just the Baltimore Sun from Alden; Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss; and Mason Slaine, a former media executive who lives in South Florida.
Here in Orlando, Craig Mateer, the founder of Bags Inc., says he wants to join the group but as an investor in the Sentinel. Mateer, who sold the baggage-handling company in 2018, has a personal connection with the paper — his father was an attorney who worked with the Sentinel’s longtime owner, Martin Andersen.
Other community leaders and philanthropists have expressed interest — a very encouraging sign.
All say they’re motivated by the desire to see newspapers thrive. Like the nation’s founders, they understand the fundamental civic value of news in our society — to keep the public informed and hold government officials like Joel Greenberg accountable.
This is the kind of principled ownership the Sentinel and other Tribune papers like the Chicago Tribune and South Florida Sun Sentinel need to survive and thrive, investors who see not just an opportunity to make money (because many papers, ours included, still make money) but also a way to strengthen their communities.
Alden, on the other hand, sees only profit potential. And that’s not hyperbole.
When Alden assumed control of the MediaNews Group newspaper chain in 2010, one of its premier properties was the Denver Post with a newsroom of some 230 reporters, editors and photographers. Today, the Post has diminished to about 70 journalists in its newsroom. This to cover a metro area of nearly 3 million people. Other papers in the Alden-owned chain have seen bone-deep staff cuts, too.
The Sentinel has hardly been immune to downsizing cuts under Tribune Publishing ownership. The 170-person newsroom in 2010 now numbers just under 80. Like other papers, we’ve closed bureaus, and narrowed our areas of coverage. Our eyes are wide open about what we are able to do today versus 10 years ago.
With Alden as our owner, however, it could get much, much worse.
National Public Radio reported earlier this year that Chicago Tribune Editor Colin McMahon told the newsroom that Alden will expect some papers to nearly double their profit margins.
In our business, just about the only way to make that happen is by cutting personnel, which would mean fewer journalists covering a metro area of 2.6 million people, one of the fastest growing regions in the nation.
Fewer reporters to cover high school football, follow local political campaigns, review the newest restaurants and uncover stories about a tax collector misspending money and abusing power.
We can’t say with 100% certainty that doom awaits if Alden takes over. Nor can we be 100% certain that a purchase by more benevolent investors would preserve community journalism in Central Florida.
But we do know Alden’s track record. And we can contrast the gutting of papers like the Denver Post with the experience in places like Minnesota, where a local investor — Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor — bought the Star Tribune newspaper in 2010.
There, the newsroom still has well over 200 journalists covering a metro area of 3.6 million.
(The Alden-owned newspaper that makes up the other half of the Twin Cities, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, has dropped from 260 newsroom staffers to 50 today.)
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ANNAPOLIS, Md. | The Latest: Hundreds attend vigil for slain paper staffers
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ANNAPOLIS, Md. | The Latest: Hundreds attend vigil for slain paper staffers
ANNAPOLIS, Md.— The Latest on the shootings targeting Maryland’s Capital Gazette newspaper (all times local):
8:15 p.m.
Hundreds of people have gathered in the shadow of the Maryland State House for a candlelight march in memory of five slain newspaper employees.
The mood was somber Friday as Capital Gazette reporter Phil Davis read aloud the names of his five slain co-workers before those gathers began marching through downtown Annapolis.
Some in the crowd carried signs and banners that said “#AnnapolisStrong.”
Melissa Wilson and her husband, Benjamin Wilson, brought their children to the vigil. Melissa Wilson’s employer has offices in the same building as the newspaper and has co-workers who were there when the gunman opened fire. She said many Annapolis residents have a “one degree of separation” connection with at least one of the five paper employees who were fatally shot Thursday.
“It’s not something you can ignore when it’s in your backyard,” she said.
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7:15 p.m.
The former editor of the Maryland newspaper where five staffers were shot to death says he became increasingly alarmed five years ago when the suspect in the slayings began targeting him and others at the newspaper with angry messages on social media.
Tom Marquardt said he called police about Jarrod Ramos in 2013, but they said the messages were not clear-cut threats. Marquardt said he talked with the newspaper’s lawyers about seeking a restraining order against Ramos, but decided against it because he and others thought it could provoke Ramos to do something worse.
“We decided to take the course of laying low,” he said.
For more than two years, Ramos “went silent,” Marquardt said.
“This led us to believe that he had moved on, but for whatever reason, he decided to resurrect his issue with The Capital yesterday,” Marquardt said. “We don’t know why.”
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6:35 p.m.
Dozens of mourners have gathered at a Maryland church to grieve and pay tribute to five slain newspaper employees, including a member of the church’s congregation.
The Rev. Fred Muir’s voice cracked when he described the mounting dread he had felt as it became clear Wendi Winters didn’t survive Thursday’s shooting at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis.
The 65-year-old Winters was a special publications editor and a mother of four.
Muir described her as a beloved “pillar of her community.”
Some of those attending the vigil at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis on Friday gasped when the Rev. John Crestwell noted that Winters had participated in a training session at the church three weeks ago on how to respond to an active shooter.
Crestwell said he was sure that Winters “did not cower in fear.” He said she “died a hero and probably saved more lives.”
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6:25 p.m.
A police detective who several years ago investigated the man accused of fatally shooting five people this week at a Maryland newspaper said at the time that he did not think the man posed a threat to the paper’s employees.
Anne Arundel County Police said Friday that the detective had been assigned to investigate threatening comments Jarrod W. Ramos made online in 2013.
A police report from 2013 that authorities released Friday describes a conference call between the detective, an attorney for the publishing company, a former correspondent and the paper’s editor.
The detective said he told the other participants he didn’t think Ramos was a threat, based partly on the fact that he had not tried to enter the newspaper building and hadn’t sent “direct threatening correspondence.” The report also says Ramos’ contact with employees had been limited to Twitter and civil court filings.
The report says the newspaper had decided not to pursue any charges because doing so would be like “putting a stick in a beehive.”
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6:10 p.m.
The Chicago-based publishing company for The Capital Gazette says it has established a fund to provide “relief and long-term recovery support” to the staff and families of victims at a Maryland newspaper where a shooting left five people dead.
Tronc Inc. said in a statement Friday that it had set up The Capital Gazette Families Fund for funeral expenses, trauma counseling, medical expenses not covered by insurance and other services.
The statement notes the Michael and Jacky Ferro Family Foundation will match up to $1 million in donations.
Tronc CEO Justin Dearborn also said in the statement that while Thursday’s attack appeared to specifically target the Capital Gazette, the company would be “enhancing security for all employees across the organization.”
Tronc Inc. publishes the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers and digital news sites in various markets.
Prosecutors say 38-year-old Jarrod W. Ramos opened fire Thursday in the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland.
He’s charged with five counts of first-degree murder.
(this item has been edited to correct the name of the publishing company, Tronc Inc.)
____
3:30 p.m.
The suspect in the shooting that left five people dead at a Maryland newspaper has been put on suicide watch.
A judge was told about the watch during a bond hearing Friday for 38-year-old Jarrod W. Ramos.
Judge Thomas Pryal also was given details about the suspect. The 5-foot-10 Ramos is single, with no children. He has lived in Maryland most of his life, including for the past 17 years in an apartment in Laurel, Maryland.
Pryal determined Ramos was still a danger and ordered him to remain in jail.
___
1 p.m.
President Donald Trump has offered a statement of support for journalists after a gunman fatally shot five people at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland.
He said Friday at the White House that “journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their jobs.”
Trump routinely calls the reporters who cover him “fake news” and “liars” and labels them “enemies of the people.”
A gunman shot his way into the newsroom of the Capital Gazette on Thursday, leaving five people dead.
Authorities and court records show the suspect had a well-documented history of harassing the paper’s journalists.
Trump said he is thinking of the survivors and the families of the “horrific, horrible” murders.
____
12:10 p.m.
A prosecutor says the shooter who opened fire at a Maryland newspaper had an escape plan he never implemented.
The suspect was captured by police while hiding under a desk at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis.
Prosecutor Wes Adams did not give any details about the escape plan. He said Friday that there were two entrances to the newspaper’s office. He says 38-year-old Jarrod W. Ramos entered through the front door on Thursday and “worked his way through the office.” He says Ramos barricaded the exit door so employees couldn’t escape, and that one of the five people who were killed was shot while trying to escape out that exit.
A judge ordered Ramos to remain detained during a court hearing Friday. Judge Thomas Pryal said found a likelihood that Ramos is a danger.
Ramos appeared at the hearing via video feed. He appeared to watch attentively during the hearing but never spoke. He was represented by public defender William Davis.
He is charged with five counts of first-degree murder.
___
11:45 a.m.
Authorities say the Maryland newspaper targeted in a shooting attack that left five people dead didn’t want to press charges in an earlier case.
Police Chief Timothy Altomare said at a news conference Friday that the Capital Gazette didn’t press charges over social media threats the shooting suspect had made against the newspaper in 2013.
Authorities have charged Jarrod W. Ramos with five counts of first-degree murder in the killings inside Maryland’s Capital Gazette office on Thursday.
Altomare said the shooter intended to “kill as many people as he could kill.”
___
11:30 a.m.
Authorities say the suspect in the deadly shooting at a Maryland newspaper used a pump-action shotgun in the attack at the Capital Gazette newspaper that left five people dead.
Police Chief Timothy Altomare also said at a news conference Friday that it is “absolutely untrue” that suspect Jarrod W. Ramos mutilated his fingertips.
Altomare also said that employees Rachel Pacella and Janet Cooley had been treated at a hospital and released after being injured during Thursday’s attack.
___
10 a.m.
The city of Annapolis is planning a vigil for the victims of a mass shooting at the Capital Gazette newspaper.
The city announced on social media Friday that the vigil would begin at 8 p.m. at a public square near the Capitol, followed by a march to a dock for a service by the water.
The Episcopal Diocese of Maryland announced that the city’s houses of worship had planned a prayer vigil at 7 p.m. Friday at a mall across the street from the shooting site. All are welcome.
On Saturday, the 5:30 p.m. Eucharist at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in downtown will be offered for the victims.
___
9:30 a.m.
A Maryland newspaper attacked by a gunman has kept its promise to put out the next day’s paper, despite the shooting deaths of five people in its newsroom.
Hours after a gunman blasted his way inside The Capital Gazette on Thursday, the surviving staff tweeted out their defiance: “Tomorrow, this Capital page will return to its steady purpose of offering readers informed opinion about the world around them. But today, we are speechless.”
Friday morning’s edition featured in-depth coverage of the shooting and obituaries of the five people killed. Each victim’s photo appeared below the masthead.
And below the main shooting story were the staples of a community newspaper: a glance at the day’s weather and a teaser to a national story inside: “Trump, Putin: The two leaders will meet in Finland in July.”
__
9 a.m.
Court documents say a gunman who fatally shot five people at a Maryland newspaper tried to hide under a desk after the attack until police arrived.
A statement of probable cause obtained Friday by The Associated Press says surveillance video captured Thursday’s events at the Capital Gazette. It says Jarrod Ramos entered the newspaper’s office around 2:30 p.m.
The statement says Ramos used a “long gun firearm” and shot out the business doors, then shot people he encountered inside, killing five.
The statement says Ramos then “attempted to conceal himself under a desk” until police arrived and located him.
Ramos was in custody Friday and scheduled for a bond hearing at 10:30 a.m.
A spokeswoman for the Office of the Public Defender said the Anne Arundel office would be representing Ramos. She declined comment.
___
5:50 a.m.
Court records filed Friday show Jarrod W. Ramos has been charged with five counts of first-degree murder in the killings inside Maryland’s Capital Gazette office.
The online records do not list an attorney for Ramos, who is scheduled for a bail hearing 10:30 a.m. Friday in Annapolis.
Authorities say Ramos opened fire inside the newspaper office Thursday, killing five and injuring two others. He had a long, acrimonious history with the newspaper, including a lawsuit and years of harassment of its journalists.
___
12: 30 a.m.
Police say a man firing a shotgun killed four journalists and a staffer at Maryland’s capital newspaper before officers quickly arrived and took him into custody.
Police say they are a questioning the suspect, a white man in his late 30s, following Thursday’s attack on The Capital Gazette in Annapolis.
Acting Police Chief William Krampf of Anne Arundel County says it was a targeted attack in which the gunman “looked for his victims.”
Journalists described how they scrambled under desks and sought to hide during a few minutes of terror. They recounted hearing the gunman’s footsteps as he moved about the newsroom, firing his weapon.
The attack came amid months of verbal and online attacks on the “fake news media” from politicians and others from President Donald Trump on down.
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By Associated Press
___
#AnnapolisStrong#annapolis#Hundreds attend vigil#Maryland Capital Gazette newspaper#slain paper staffers#TodayNews
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Meet the woman who ties Jeffrey Epstein to Trump and the Clintons
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Meet the woman who ties Jeffrey Epstein to Trump and the Clintons
Ghislaine Maxwell was crucial in ensuring Jeffery Epstein’s access to Trump’s world. | Laura Cavanaugh/Getty Images
legal
Heiress Ghislaine Maxwell paved the way to presidents.
How did wealthy sex offender Jeffrey Epstein come to be palling around with Bill Clinton and Donald Trump?
People who know those involved say Epstein’s connections to two U.S. presidents ran through one bubbly British heiress: Ghislaine Maxwell.
Story Continued Below
Maxwell, who has denied accusations made in civil suits of aiding and participating in Epstein’s sexual abuse of minors, has been among the financier’s closest associates. Unlike Epstein, she comes from a rarefied background that gave her entrée to the rich and powerful.
For years, beginning in the early ’90s, she and Epstein cut glittering figures on the Manhattan and Palm Beach social circuits, with Maxwell taking the lead. While people who knew Epstein in Palm Beach described him as “very odd” and said “he didn’t go out much,” those who know Maxwell described her as “vivacious,” “warm” and “effusive.”
Her family knew Trump before Epstein arrived on the scene, and she continued to socialize with Chelsea Clinton after Epstein was jailed on sex offenses.
Maxwell first grew close with the Clintons after Bill Clinton left office, vacationing on a yacht with Chelsea Clinton in 2009, attending her wedding in 2010, and participating in the Clinton Global Initiative as recently as 2013, years after her name first emerged in accounts of Epstein’s alleged sexual abuse.
“Ghislaine was the contact between Epstein and Clinton,” said a person familiar with the relationship. “She ended up being close to the family because she and Chelsea ended up becoming close.” (Lawyers for Maxwell did not respond to requests for comment, and a spokesperson for Clinton disputed the idea that the two women were ever close.)
Trump’s ties to Maxwell and her late father, the publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell, meanwhile, go back even further, to at least the late 1980s.
“He really likes her,” said Steven Hoffenberg, a former mentor to Epstein who pleaded guilty in 1995 to running a massive Ponzi scheme, of Trump and Maxwell. “He was friendly with her father.”
In the 1980s, Trump and Robert Maxwell, the Czech-born owner of London’s Daily Mirror tabloid, rubbed shoulders on the high-flying Manhattan party circuit.
An item from a May 1989 gossip column placed Trump and both Maxwells together at a party aboard the elder Maxwell’s yacht, named the Lady Ghislaine, that featured caviar flown in from Paris and former Republican senator John Tower of Texas. The item notes that Trump compared his own larger yacht with Maxwell’s.
As it happened, Trump’s yacht, the Trump Princess, had originally belonged to the Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi (uncle of the slain Washington Post contributor Jamal), and Maxwell’s yacht had originally belonged to one of Adnan’s brothers.
Two years later, Maxwell fell off his yacht in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and drowned, a sensational death that was ruled accidental.
“He was a character and a colorful guy, and I think we were lucky to have seen even a short time of him in New York,” Trump told Larry King during an appearance on CNN two weeks later. “He was my kind of a guy.”
Robert Maxwell’s biographer later related an incident from around the same period when Ghislaine was working for one of her father’s business enterprises selling corporate gifts.
While planning a trip to New York, she asked her father to use his friendship with Trump to get her a meeting with the mogul.
“Have you got your bum in your head?” the elder Maxwell responded, according to an account by the late Nicholas Davies, a former Mirror editor who wrote Maxwell’s biography. “Why the f*** would Donald Trump want to waste his time seeing you with your crappy gifts when he has a multi-million-dollar business to run?”
It appears Robert Maxwell sold his daughter short. A 1997 New Yorker profile of Trump notes that the article’s author shared a ride to Palm Beach on Trump’s private jet with Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as a teenage Eric Trump and Matthew Calamari, a longtime member of Trump’s private security team.
It is not clear whether Maxwell first introduced Trump and Epstein, who socialized together at least as early as 1992, but Maxwell was crucial in ensuring Epstein’s access to Trump’s world. Archival video unearthed on Wednesday by NBC from that year shows Trump and Epstein surrounded by dancing women at Mar-a-Lago, with Maxwell smiling in the background.
“Ghislaine was his path to social acceptance,” said Thomas Volscho, a professor at the City University of New York who has been researching Epstein. “They don’t always accept you. Ghislaine was really a conduit for him to start to socialize with people who are way beyond his level.”
According to “Filthy Rich,” a 2016 book about Epstein by best-selling author and Mar-a-Lago member James Patterson, “Although Epstein had never properly joined the club, Trump’s friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell gave Epstein unlimited use of the facilities.”
Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a former changing room attendant at Mar-a-Lago who has accused Epstein of sexually abusing her as a minor, alleges in a lawsuit that she was first approached at the club in 1998 by Ghislaine Maxwell, who convinced her to meet Epstein and joined him in the abuse. Maxwell has denied wrongdoing.
It is not clear whether Maxwell ever officially joined the club. A directory of Mar-a-Lago members obtained by POLITICO in 2016 does not contain her name. Private clubs generally do not disclose information about members. In several calls to Mar-a-Lago’s main line, staffers said no one was on hand to field press inquiries and suggested calling back at other times. The White House did not respond to an email requesting comment.
But her visits to Mar-a-Lago spanned at least the better part of a decade.
Trump, his future wife Melania, Epstein and Maxwell were all photographed together at the club in 2000. That year, Epstein and Maxwell were also spotted at the club with Prince Andrew, according to the Daily Mail. According to the Daily Telegraph, it was Maxwell who introduced Epstein to the British royal, whose association with the sex offender has been a long-running scandal in the United Kingdom. Epstein also attended a birthday party for Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle in 2000. That same year, Maxwell and Prince Andrew attended what The Daily Mail described as a “hookers and pimps”-themed Halloween party hosted by Heidi Klum.
A month later, in early December 2000, Trump, his future wife Melania, Epstein and Maxwell all attended a surprise 60th birthday for Barbara Amiel, a British socialite, that was also attended by the likes of Anna Wintour, Charlie Rose and William F. Buckley.
Tina Brown, the magazine editor, recalled that around this period Maxwell would reach out to her to socialize when Prince Andrew came to New York. “She was a bit mysterious,” Brown recalled.
One regular on the social scene in Palm Beach and other exclusive locales recalled attending an event at Ascot, the English horse racing course, around the late 1990s, where, upon entering the course’s “royal enclosure,” the person saw Epstein sitting with the royal family.
Much of Epstein’s access to Clinton’s world also flowed through Maxwell. “The Clintons were relatively intimate with her,” said a Maxwell friend.
In 2002 and 2003, flight logs reportedly show that Bill Clinton flew on 26 flight legs on Epstein’s private jet.
“President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York,” said a spokesman for Bill Clinton, Angel Urena, in a statement. Urena said the flight legs comprised four trips total in 2002 and 2003, and that staff and Secret Service were present on all flights. Urena said that Epstein visited Bill Clinton at his Harlem office once in 2002, and that he briefly visited Epstein’s apartment one time.
Maxwell’s ties to Clinton world, meanwhile, would last another decade.
One friend of Maxwell’s, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, described their surprise upon showing up at a dinner party at her Upper East Side apartment around 2005 to find Doug Band, then a top advisor to Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, among the 8 to 10 guests. In 2006, a charity run by Epstein, C.O.U.Q. Foundation, gave $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation, the Daily Beast reported.
But allegations of misconduct by Epstein, and then Maxwell, began to pile up, making associations with them increasingly fraught. In 2006, it emerged that police in Palm Beach were investigating Epstein for allegedly soliciting underage girls for sex, and he would eventually plead guilty to sex offenses, serving jail time in Florida. For several years afterward, allegations about Maxwell’s involvement in Epstein’s misconduct escalated in severity.
In 2007, The Daily Mail reported allegations by a woman named Johanna Sjoberg that Maxwell recruited her to work for Epstein, who then induced her “to perform demeaning sexual services.” The paper reported, “There is no suggestion that Ghislaine was aware that some of the girls were underage, or aware of Jeffrey’s sexual requests.” In 2009, Giuffre filed a lawsuit in which she alleged she was recruited by Maxwell as a 15-year-old to work for Epstein, who proceeded to sexually abuse her. That year, the New York Post reported that Maxwell was served with a subpoena by a lawyer representing some of Epstein’s accusers as she left a Clinton Global Initiative conference.
In March 2011, Giuffre elaborated on her claims, telling the Daily Mail that Maxwell instructed her to take off her clothes as she was massaging Epstein, who proceeded to have sex with her. Maxwell issued a statement denying the claim. In 2015, Giuffre accused Maxwell in a court filing of engaging in sex with underage girls.
“It wasn’t until 2015 that Chelsea and Marc became aware of the horrific allegations against Ghislaine Maxwell and hope that all the victims find justice,” said Chelsea Clinton’s chief of staff, Bari Lurie. “Chelsea and Marc were friendly with her because of her relationship with a dear friend of theirs. When that relationship ended, Chelsea and Marc’s friendship with her ended as well.”
For several years, Maxwell was romantically linked with Ted Waitt, the billionaire founder of Gateway computers.
A person close to Chelsea Clinton described Waitt as a “very close family friend” of Chelsea and Mezvinsky, and said the couple met Maxwell through him in 2011. The person said Chelsea Clinton and her husband ended their friendship with Maxwell when she and Waitt broke up in early 2011, and disputed that Maxwell and Chelsea Clinton were ever “close.”
Two people familiar with the relationship between Maxwell and the Clintons said Maxwell, Chelsea Clinton and Mezvinsky flew together on a private plane to rendezvous with Waitt for a trip on Waitt’s yacht. One of those people said the trip took place in 2009.
Waitt, whose philanthropic endeavors focus on the world’s oceans, has given somewhere between $10 million and $25 million to the Clinton Foundation. Waitt’s philanthropic foundation did not respond to a request for comment.
One person familiar with the Maxwell-Clinton relationship said that while Maxwell “was incredibly close” to Chelsea, “She had her own relationship with Bill Clinton and was very close to him.”
In 2010, Maxwell attended Chelsea Clinton’s wedding, apparently as Waitt’s date. In 2012, Maxwell launched her own Ocean-focused charity, the TerraMar Project. A year later, the Clinton Global Initiative trumpeted a TerraMar initiative among the “commitments to action” announced at its annual meeting. No money changed hands.
The initiative was the Sustainable Oceans Alliance, which sought to ensure the United Nations included oceans in its Sustainable Development Goals.
A 2013 press release on the website for TerraMar —which announced it was shuttering in the days after Epstein’s arrest — describes the alliance as a four-way partnership between TerraMar; another nonprofit called the Global Partnerships Forum; the late Stuart Beck, who served as “ambassador on oceans and seas” from the Pacific island nation of Palau; and a Trump friend, Paolo Zampolli, an Italian-born businessman who has served in diplomatic posts for Caribbean nations.
Before his diplomatic career, Zampolli co-founded a model management company and served as the Trump Organization’s director of international development. He has long been credited with introducing Trump to his third wife, Melania, though the New York Times reported this month that Epstein has also claimed credit for the introduction.
Zampolli said he was unaware of Maxwell’s connection to the Sustainable Oceans Initiative but that he does recall that Beck — who served on TerraMarr’s board in 2013 — brought Maxwell to the United Nations twice to discuss her oceans advocacy.
TerraMar sought to build social networks around ocean protection, issuing free “Ocean Passports” to anyone who pledged to support its goals, making them an “ocean citizen.”
“This lady,” Zampolli recalled, “had some very interesting ideas.”
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'The Guardians' Named Time's 2018 Person of the Year
A group of journalists whose work has landed them in jail — or cost them their lives — have been named Time's Person of the Year for 2018.
The magazine's editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal announced its choice of "The Guardians and the War on Truth" on the "Today" show Tuesday, and revealed the four magazine covers feature Jamal Khashoggi, Maria Ressa, the Capital Gazette staff of Annapolis, Maryland, and the wives of Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo.
'Drop the Baby!' Dramatic Police Body Cam Shows Fire Rescue
"Like all human gifts, courage comes to us at varying levels and at varying moments,” the magazine’s editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote in an essay about the selection. “This year we are recognizing four journalists and one news organization who have paid a terrible price to seize the challenge of this moment."
In honoring Khashoggi, Felsenthal noted it is the first year Time has named someone who is no longer alive as Person of the Year. Khashoggi, who lived in the U.S. and wrote for The Washington Post, was publicly critical of the Saudi crown prince. He was killed in what U.S. officials have described as an elaborate plot at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, which he had visited for marriage paperwork.
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Ressa is founder and executive editor of the Philippine digital news outlet Rappler and a vocal critic of the government of President Rodrigo Duterte. In return, she has faced several government lawsuits and threats of violence, according to The Associated Press. Ressa, who has worked with CNN, was the winner of two prestigious journalism awards this year, a Press Freedom award from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, and the International Center for Journalists’ Knight International Journalism Award.
The gunman who opened fire at the Capital Gazette newspaper, killing five people, had a "vendetta" against the paper over an article it published in 2011 about criminial harassment to which he pleaded guilty to. But, a day after the massacre at the Maryland newspaper, Gazette staffers "did what it has done since before the American Revolution—they put the paper out," Time said in a statement.
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The other two honorees, Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, are currently imprisoned over their reporting in 2016 on the brutal crackdown by security forces on the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, which, according to the AP, left hundreds dead in the massacre. The U.N.'s top human rights body has said that genocide charges should be brought against senior Myanmar military officers over the crackdown.
The magazine said the four individuals and the lone newspaper symbolize something bigger than themselves.
"They are representative of a broader fight by countless others around the world — as of Dec. 10, at least 52 journalists have been murdered in 2018 — who risk all to tell the story of our time," Felsenthal wrote in his essay.
A shortlist revealed Monday that included Donald Trump, Separated Familes, Meghan Markle, Vladimir Putin, Robert Mueller, Ryan Coogler, Christine Blasey Ford, slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi, March For Our Lives Activists, and Moon Jae-in.
Time has made the designation every year since 1927. Last year, the magazine's editors selected The Silence Breakers, the individuals who spoke up and sparked a national reckoning over the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault.
The year before that, 2016, was Donald Trump, who had just become president-elect after stunning the nation — and the world — by winning the White House race.
Trump was again a finalist last year and made the 2018 short list, which includes two other world leaders, a university professor, families torn apart and American royalty.
Photo Credit: 'Today'
'The Guardians' Named Time's 2018 Person of the Year published first on Miami News
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Hundreds gather in Annapolis to remember shooting victims
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (Reuters) – Hundreds of people gathered on Friday evening to remember the five people gunned down at a community newspaper office in Annapolis, Maryland, one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in U.S. history.
The vigil came hours after accused gunman Jarrod Ramos was denied bail during a brief hearing in Anne Arundel County criminal court. Ramos, 38, appeared by video link from jail and did not speak during the proceedings.
More than 300 mourners, many of them carrying candles, walked slowly through the streets of Annapolis, the state capital, near the capitol dome, which was lit up, its flags flown at half staff in honor of the shooting victims.
All five of those slain worked at the Capital Gazette newspaper. Ramos is accused of opening fire on Thursday over a longstanding grudge against the paper.
He is accused of entering the Capital Gazette office, firing through a glass door with a 12-gauge shotgun, hunting for victims and spraying the newsroom with gunfire as reporters hid under desks and begged for help on social media.
Prosecutors said Ramos barricaded a back door to prevent people from fleeing.
“The fellow was there to kill as many people as he could,” Anne Arundel County Police Chief Timothy Altomare told a news conference, adding that the suspect was identified with facial-recognition technology.
Altomare said evidence found at Ramos’ home, in Laurel, Maryland, showed that he planned the attack and that the pump-action 12 gauge shotgun used was legally purchased about a year ago.
The five killed were Rob Hiaasen, 59; Wendi Winters, 65; Rebecca Smith, 34; Gerald Fischman, 61; and John McNamara. All were journalists except for Smith, who was a sales assistant, police said. Hiaasen was the brother of best-selling author Carl Hiaasen.
The Capital newspaper, part of the Gazette group, published an edition on Friday with photographs of the victims and a headline “5 shot dead at The Capital” on its front page. The editorial page was left blank but for a note saying the editors were speechless.
Photographs widely shared on social media showed staffers working on laptops in a parking garage to produce Friday’s edition while they waited to learn the fate of their colleagues.
TRUMP CALLS RAMPAGE A “DISGRACE”
Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley said he was proud of the journalists who had “soldiered on” in the face of the tragedy.
“These guys, they don’t make a lot of money. They do journalism because they love what they do. And they got a newspaper out today,” Buckley told Fox News.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who has had a combative relationship with the media since his 2016 election, was asked by reporters traveling with him on Air Force One whether he was reconsidering calling journalists “enemies of the people.”
“Obviously the press has treated me very badly, but in the meantime I’m president … I guess they didn’t treat me badly enough,” Trump said, calling the shooting rampage a “disgrace.”
Ramos in 2012 sued Eric Hartley, a columnist with Capital Gazette, and Thomas Marquardt, then its editor and publisher, court filings showed.
People take part in a candlelight vigil in downtown Annapolis to honor the five people who were killed inside the Capital Gazette newspaper the day before in Annapolis, Maryland, U.S. REUTERS/Leah Millis
A column by Hartley contended that Ramos had harassed a former high school classmate on Facebook and that he had pleaded guilty to criminal harassment, according to a legal document.
The court agreed the article was accurate and based on public records, the document showed. In 2015 Maryland’s second-highest court upheld the ruling, rejecting Ramos’ suit.
According to a WBAL-TV reporter who said she spoke with the woman who was harassed, Ramos became “fixated” with her for no apparent reason, causing her to move three times, change her name, and sleep with a gun.
Neither Hartley nor Marquardt is still employed by the paper and neither was at its offices on Thursday.
Ramos tweeted at the time of the lawsuit that he had set up a Twitter account to defend himself, and wrote in his biographical notes that he was “making corpses of corrupt careers and corporate entities.”
Phil Davis, a Capital Gazette crime reporter, recounted how 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,” he told the Baltimore Sun. “I don’t know why he stopped.”
Authorities responded to the scene within a minute of the shooting, and Ramos was arrested while hiding under a desk, the shotgun on the floor nearby, police said. He will face either a preliminary court hearing or grand jury indictment within the next 30 days. Maryland does not have the death penalty.
Capital Gazette runs several newspapers out of its Annapolis office. They include one of the oldest newspapers in the United States, The Gazette, which traces its origins back to 1727.
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Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Doina Chiacu in Washington, Gina Cherelus in New York and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Writing by Daniel Wallis and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Leslie Adler
The post Hundreds gather in Annapolis to remember shooting victims appeared first on World The News.
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The staff of the Capital Gazette vowed, hours after a shooting in their newsroom, that they would be “putting out a damn paper tomorrow” — and put out a paper they did.
The Maryland newspaper released a morning edition of its paper just a day after a shooter broke into the Annapolis newsroom, killing four journalists and one other staff member, and injuring two other people. The staff worked from a parking lot in a garage adjacent to the building to ensure that the paper was released on time.
The Capital Gazette published tributes to Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith, and Wendi Winters, the five slain staffers, with reporters at the Baltimore Sun lending a helping hand to honor the victims.
They wrote about Hiaasen’s generosity and mentorship, Fischman’s “clever and quirky voice,” McNamara’s finding his “dream job,” Winters’s “prolific” career and Smith’s kindness and consideration for the world.
The publication also left its editorial page mostly blank, aside from a small bit of text beginning “Today, we are speechless.”
Tomorrow this Capital page will return to its steady purpose of offering readers informed opinion about the world around them. But today, we are speechless. pic.twitter.com/5HzKN2IW7Q
— Capital Gazette (@capgaznews) June 29, 2018
“This page is intentionally left blank today to commemorate victims of Thursday’s shooting at our office,” the Capital Gazette continued, in lieu of a opinion piece. “Tomorrow this page will return to its steady purpose of offering our readers informed opinion about the world around them, that they might be better citizens.”
Other newspapers around the country also paid tribute to the the Capital Gazette.
The Miami Herald, where Rob Hiaasen’s brother Carl is a columnist, spoke about the differences between other mass shootings and this one, targeted at journalists.
“The nation has seen this before and, infuriatingly, will again,” the Miami Herald wrote. “And again we will ask, How did the shooter get the gun? Was he mentally ill? What, exactly, was his motive? We all know the drill.”
The Herald continued, “But here’s what’s different. Hatred for the media, the most responsible of which tell uncomfortable truths, and question authority. But journalists are excoriated as enemies of the people — to use President Trump’s hateful words.”
Original Source -> See the front page of the paper the Capital Gazette put out the day after a fatal shooting
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Capital Gazette puts out next-day 'damn paper,' as promised | Fox News
Capital Gazette puts out next-day ‘damn paper,’ as promised | Fox News
Staffers of the Capital Gazette have put out a Friday edition, as promised, just a day after five of their colleagues were slain in the paper’s Annapolis, Md., newsroom.
Source: Capital Gazette puts out next-day ‘damn paper,’ as promised
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Capital Gazette puts out next-day 'damn paper,' as promised
Capital Gazette puts out next-day ‘damn paper,’ as promised
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Staffers of the Capital Gazette have put out a Friday edition, as promised, just a day after five of their colleagues were slain in the paper’s Annapolis, Md., newsroom.
The Friday headline on the paper’s front page reads, “5 shot dead at The Capital,” in big, bold, black letters, with 10 staffers on the byline. Photos of the five staffers who were killed appear across the top.
Surviving…
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ANNAPOLIS, Md. | US newsrooms fall silent to honor 5 slain at Maryland paper
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ANNAPOLIS, Md. | US newsrooms fall silent to honor 5 slain at Maryland paper
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Newsrooms usually abuzz with approaching deadlines fell oddly silent as journalists nationwide paused to honor five people shot dead a week before at a Maryland newspaper.
At a temporary office of the Capital Gazette, where the massacre occurred, survivors gathered somberly at 2:33 p.m. Thursday. Editor Rick Hutzell rang a bell and the staff lit candles for each person who died exactly seven days earlier, The Baltimore Sun reported.
At the New York headquarters of The Associated Press, dozens paused to reflect as Manhattan streets kept humming below. At The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia, voices cracked as a moment of silence was accompanied by the names of the five victims being read aloud.
“It was incredibly quiet,” said reporter Jane Harper, 55, who once worked at the Annapolis paper. “Not a cellphone rang. Not a desk phone. Not a single sound.”
The American Society of News Editors and The Associated Press Media Editors asked newsrooms around the globe to join in a remembrance of the dead, and many did.
Journalists at The Oklahoman in Oklahoma City worked through tragedy after the deadly bombing of a federal building in 1995, and about 40 newspaper staffers bowed their heads in memory of the victims in Maryland.
“The folks a week ago at the Capital Gazette had a worse experience in their newsroom, and yet they admirably did what they do, what we all do,” business and lifestyle editor Clytie Bunyan said.
The newsroom of the Courier Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, fell silent in memory of the victims after executive editor Joel Christopher read the names of the dead.
“They paid a high price for doing what we do,” he said.
About 100 people gathered at AP in New York to observe a moment of silence, circling around a desk where coverage of national and international stories is planned.
The attack on the Capital Gazette newsroom was “frightening and distressing in so many ways,” AP executive editor Sally Buzbee said.
Jimmie Gates, a reporter who participated in a moment of silence at the Clarion Ledger newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi, said being a journalist is like being in a small fraternity or sorority, and an injury to any one member hurts all.
“It was just like a family member being taken away,” Gates said.
The remembrance also touched journalism schools. No classes were in session at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, but more than a dozen faculty members and students bowed their heads in memory of the slain newspaper workers.
One of the victims, assistant managing editor Rob Hiaasen, was an adjunct lecturer who taught his first class at the school in the spring semester. Two other victims, editorial page editor Gerald Fischman and John McNamara, a writer and copy editor, earned their bachelor’s degrees from the university more than three decades ago.
Special publications editor Wendi Winters and Rebecca Smith, a recently hired sales assistant, also were killed. Deborah Nelson, an associate professor at Maryland, said the killings will be on the minds of people getting into journalism.
“Students will be traumatized by the loss and they’ll also be wondering about the issue of safety, which is something we haven’t had to deal with much in the U.S.,” she said.
Jarrod Ramos, a 38-year-old Maryland man with a longtime grudge against the newspaper, has been charged with five counts of first-degree murder in the shooting. He is being held without bail.
Executive editor Paige Mudd of the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia said what happened in Annapolis was a reminder that journalists’ work makes them vulnerable.
“We’re not in the line of fire every day like police or the military, but we do run the risk of angering readers or the public if they don’t like our coverage. And you just can’t predict how a disgruntled reader might react,” Mudd said.
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Associated Press reporters Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Kentucky; Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi; Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama; David Bauder in New York; Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia; Denise Lavoie in Richmond, Virginia; Michael Kunzelman in College Park, Maryland; and Adam Kealoha Causey in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.
By BRIAN WITTE, Associated Press
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May 25, 2017
Here is the top literary news of the week:
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Newspaper Shooting Suspect Heads to Court on Murder Charges
The man who police say killed four journalists and a staffer at The Capital Gazette will get a bond hearing Friday on five murder charges.
Jarrod Ramos, 38, allegedly opened fire inside the newspaper office Thursday, killing five and injuring two others. He had a long, acrimonious history with the newspaper, including a lawsuit and years of harassment of its journalists.
What We Know About the Md. Newspaper Shooting Suspect
Ramos is charged with five counts of first-degree murder, according to court documents. He was scheduled for a bail review Friday at 10:30 a.m. in Annapolis. It was not immediately clear whether Ramos has an attorney.
Ramos, armed with a long gun, shot out the business' doors and shot the victims as he encountered them, charging documents say. Responding officers found him under a desk, where he was attempting to hide, authorities say.
4 Journalists, Sales Assistant Killed at Maryland Newspaper
While Thursday's attack on The Capital Gazette in Annapolis came amid months of verbal and online attacks on the "fake news media" from politicians and others from President Donald Trump on down, there was no immediate indication the shooting was connected to that rhetoric. The shooting prompted New York City police to tighten security at news organizations in the nation's media capital out of an abundance of caution.
Acting Police Chief William Krampf of Anne Arundel County called it a targeted attack in which the gunman "looked for his victims."
Capital Gazette Shooting Suspect Had 'Vendetta': Officials
"This person was prepared today to come in, this person was prepared to shoot people," Krampf said.
Journalists crawled under desks and sought other hiding places in what they described as minutes of terror as they heard the gunman's footsteps and the repeated blasts of the shotgun as he moved about the newsroom.
"It was unfortunate to see such good-hearted people ultimately suffer such untimely, senseless death," shooting survivor and Capital Gazette intern Anthony Messenger told the "Today" show Friday.
Those killed at the Gazette included Rob Hiaasen, 59, the paper's assistant managing editor and brother of novelist Carl Hiaasen. Carl Hiaasen said he was "devastated and heartsick" at losing his brother, "one of the most gentle and funny people I've ever known."
Also slain were Gerald Fischman, editorial page editor; features reporter Wendi Winters; reporter John McNamara, and sales assistant Rebecca Smith. The newspaper said two other employees had non-life threatening injuries and were later released from a hospital.
Phil Davis, a courts and crime reporter for the paper, tweeted that the gunman shot out the glass door to the office and fired into the newsroom, sending people scrambling under desks.
"There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you're under your desk and then hear the gunman reload," he wrote in a tweet. In a later interview appearing on the paper's online site, Davis likened the newspaper office to a "war zone."
"I'm a police reporter. I write about this stuff — not necessarily to this extent, but shootings and death — all the time," he said. "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."
Reporter Selene San Felice told CNN she was at her desk but ran after hearing shots, only to find a back door locked. She then watched as a colleague was shot, adding she didn't glimpse the gunman.
"I heard footsteps a couple of times," she said. "I was breathing really loud and was trying not to, but I couldn't be quiet."
The reporter recalled a June 2016 mass shooting attack on Orlando's gay nightclub Pulse and how terrified people crouching inside had texted loved ones as dozens were killed. Said San Felice, "And there I was sitting under a desk, texting my parents and telling them I loved them."
Survivors said the shooting — though it seemed agonizingly long — lasted mere minutes. And police said their response was swift.
Police spokesman Lt. Ryan Frashure said officers arrived within about 60 seconds and took the gunman into custody without an exchange of gunfire. Ramos attempted to hide under a desk until police found him, according to a charging document.
About 170 people were then evacuated from the building, which houses other offices. Many left with their hands up as police and other emergency vehicles arrived.
At the White House, spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said: "There is no room for violence, and we stick by that. Violence is never tolerated in any form, no matter whom it is against."
Investigators remained on the cordoned-off site early Friday as they sought clues to the gunman's motives.
"The shooter has not been very forthcoming, so we don't have any information yet on motive," Anne Arundel County Executive Steve Schuh said.
In 2012, Ramos filed a defamation lawsuit against the newspaper, alleging he was harmed by an article about his conviction in a criminal harassment case a year earlier. The suit was dismissed by a judge who wrote Ramos hadn't shown "anything that was published about you is, in fact, false." An appeals court later upheld the dismissal.
Following police activity late Thursday around a Laurel apartment complex where the suspect is believed to have resided, officers by 2 a.m. could be seen clearing the scene.
Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley said the community was grieving the attack on its paper.
"These are the guys that come to city council meetings, have to listen to boring politicians and sit there,'' Buckley said. "They don't make a lot of money. It's just immoral that their lives should be in danger."
Appearing on MSNBC Friday, Buckley called for a look into gun control and mental health issues, saying that "this can't be the new normal."
"We can't keep accepting this," he said.
Buckley added that he thought there would be "some traction" after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, and the students' March for Our Lives campaign. However, he expressed disappointment at the lack of change that has taken place since that Feb. 14 massacre.
The mayor asked people to come together in the wake of these tragedies.
"We shouldn't be mad all the time. ... We need to take a deep breath ... We got to stop hating one another," Buckley said.
The newspaper is part of Capital Gazette Communications, which also publishes the Maryland Gazette and CapitalGazette.com. It is owned by The Baltimore Sun.
Late Thursday night, the paper unveiled its front page, featuring the photos of their five colleagues who had been killed just hours earlier.
The opinion page, which was left nearly blank intentionally, also featured a tribute to the victims.
"Today, we are speechless. This page is intentionally left blank today to commemorate the victims of Thursday's shooting at our office," the page read.
The Associated Press Media Editors promised to help Capital Gazette journalists as they recover. An APME statement called on newspapers nationwide to help the paper continue its community coverage and fight for freedom of the press.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
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Newspaper Shooting Suspect Heads to Court on Murder Charges published first on Miami News
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ANNAPOLIS, Md. | Grief in small town: March honors victims of newsroom attack
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ANNAPOLIS, Md. | Grief in small town: March honors victims of newsroom attack
ANNAPOLIS, Md. —Quietly clutching candles or hoisting #AnnapolisStrong signs, more than 1,000 people streamed through Maryland’s capital, remembering five people slain in a newspaper office not just as gatekeepers of the news but as a crucial piece of their tight-knit community.
Friends, former co-workers and people who felt connected to the victims took part in a strikingly silent candlelit march Friday night to honor the employees of The Capital newspaper who were killed a day earlier in one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in U.S. history.
Melissa Wilson, who came to the vigil with her husband, Benjamin, their 9-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son, said many Annapolis residents have “one degree of separation” from at least one victim.
“The people who made our newspaper are people we felt we knew, even if we had never met them before,” Benjamin Wilson said.
Melissa Wilson’s employer has offices in the same building as the newspaper and her co-workers were there when a gunman methodically blasted his way through the newsroom with a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun.
Jarrod W. Ramos has been charged with five counts of first-degree murder. Authorities say he has a longtime grudge against the paper, suing it in 2012 after it ran an article about him pleading guilty to harassing a woman. He also sent a barrage of menacing tweets that led to an investigation five years ago.
A detective concluded he was no threat, and the paper didn’t want to press charges for fear of “putting a stick in a beehive.”
But residents focused on the victims: assistant managing editor Rob Hiaasen, editorial page editor Gerald Fischman, special projects editor Wendi Winters, reporter John McNamara and sales assistant Rebecca Smith.
David Marsters, who worked at the newspaper from 2008 to 2016 and knew four of the slain employees, said the outpouring of grief over their deaths is a testament to the special bond the newspaper has with its readers.
“They were great people who did amazing work in the community,” he said.
He took part in the march that ended at a waterfront harbor called “City Dock,” where laughter and the noise of playing children usually carries across the restaurants, bars and shops. But not on Friday.
“For it to be so still and so somber, especially on a Friday night, it’s startling,” Kit O’Neill said, describing Annapolis as “a small town with a big heart.”
“And the Gazette is its mighty newspaper,” she added.
Earlier, dozens of mourners gathered at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis to pay tribute to congregation member Wendi Winters and the other victims.
The Rev. Fred Muir’s voice cracked as he described the mounting dread he felt Thursday as it became clear Winters didn’t survive. He described her as a beloved “pillar of her community.”
“Everybody has a Wendi Winters story. She was a force to be reckoned with,” he said.
Muir said the shock and grief have reverberated across Annapolis, a city he described as a small town where many people knew somebody who worked at the newspaper.
In the attack, police said Ramos barricaded the rear exit of the office to prevent anyone from escaping, gunning down one victim trying to slip out the back.
His public defenders had no comment after he was denied bail in a brief court appearance. He was placed on suicide watch.
Ramos had repeatedly targeted staffers with angry, profanity-laced tweets, launching so many online attacks that then-publisher Tom Marquardt called police in 2013.
A detective investigated, holding a conference call with an attorney for the publishing company, a former correspondent and the paper’s publisher, Anne Arundel County Police Chief Timothy Altomare said.
A police report said the attorney produced a trove of tweets in which Ramos “makes mention of blood in the water, journalist hell, hit man, open season, glad there won’t be murderous rampage, murder career.”
The detective, Michael Praley, said in the report that he “did not believe that Mr. Ramos was a threat to employees” at the paper, noting that Ramos hadn’t tried to enter the building and hadn’t sent “direct, threatening correspondence.”
“As of this writing the Capital will not pursue any charges,” Praley wrote. “It was described as putting a stick in a beehive which the Capital Newspaper representatives do not wish to do.”
Marquardt, the former publisher, said he talked with the newspaper’s attorneys about seeking a restraining order but didn’t because he and others thought it could provoke Ramos to do something worse.
Later, in 2015, Ramos tweeted that he would like to see the paper stop publishing, but “it would be nicer” to see two of its journalists “cease breathing.”
Then Ramos “went silent” for more than two years, Marquardt said.
“This led us to believe that he had moved on, but for whatever reason, he decided to resurrect his issue with The Capital yesterday,” the former publisher said. “We don’t know why.”
The police chief said new posts went up just before the killings but authorities didn’t know about them until later.
Little has been released about Ramos, other than that he is single, has no children and lives in an apartment in Laurel, Maryland. He was employed by an IT contractor for the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics from 2007 to 2014, a department spokesman said.
The rampage began with a shotgun blast that shattered the glass entrance to the open newsroom. Ramos carefully planned the attack, using “a tactical approach in hunting down and shooting the innocent people,” prosecutor Wes Adams said.
Journalists crawled under desks, describing agonizing minutes of terror as they heard the gunman’s footsteps and the repeated blasts.
“I was curled up, trying not to breathe, trying not to make a sound, and he shot people all around me,” photographer Paul Gillespie, who dove beneath a desk, told The Baltimore Sun, owner of the Annapolis paper.
Gillespie said he heard a colleague scream, “No!” A gunshot blast followed. He heard another co-worker’s voice, then another shot.
The chief said Ramos’ shotgun was legally purchased about a year ago despite his guilty plea in the harassment case. He also carried smoke grenades, authorities said.
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By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and BRIAN WITTE, Associated Press
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ANNAPOLIS, Md. | Suspect in Maryland newspaper to appear on 5 murder charges
New Post has been published on https://is.gd/pzNH9c
ANNAPOLIS, Md. | Suspect in Maryland newspaper to appear on 5 murder charges
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A man firing a shotgun and armed with smoke grenades killed four journalists and a staffer at Maryland’s capital newspaper will get a bond hearing Friday on five murder charges after police rushed in and swiftly arrested him.
Thursday’s attack on The Capital Gazette in Annapolis came amid months of verbal and online attacks on the “fake news media” from politicians and others from President Donald Trump on down. It prompted New York City police to immediately tighten security at news organizations in the nation’s media capital.
Police said the suspect in custody is a white man in his late 30s.
Acting Police Chief William Krampf of Anne Arundel County called it a targeted attack in which the gunman “looked for his victims.”
“This person was prepared today to come in, this person was prepared to shoot people,” Krampf said.
Journalists crawled under desks and sought other hiding places in what they described as minutes of terror as they heard the gunman’s footsteps and the repeated blasts of the shotgun as he moved about the newsroom.
Those killed included Rob Hiaasen, 59, the paper’s assistant managing editor and brother of novelist Carl Hiaasen. Carl Hiaasen said he was “devastated and heartsick” at losing his brother, “one of the most gentle and funny people I’ve ever known.” Also slain were Gerald Fischman, editorial page editor; features reporter Wendi Winters; reporter John McNamara, and sales assistant Rebecca Smith. The newspaper said two other employees had non-life threatening injuries and were later released from a hospital.
Krampf said the gunman was a Maryland resident, but didn’t name him.
Separately, a law enforcement official said the suspect was identified as Jarrod W. Ramos. The official wasn’t authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Online court records show Ramos was charged Friday with five counts of first-degree murder. The records, which don’t list a defense attorney, show a bond hearing was scheduled for 10:30 a.m. in Annapolis.
Phil Davis, a courts and crime reporter for the paper, tweeted that the gunman shot out the glass door to the office and fired into the newsroom, sending people scrambling under desks.
“There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you’re under your desk and then hear the gunman reload,” he wrote in a tweet. In a later interview appearing on the paper’s online site, Davis likened the newspaper office to a “war zone.”
“I’m a police reporter. I write about this stuff — not necessarily to this extent, but shootings and death — all the time,” he said. “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.”
Reporter Selene San Felice told CNN she was at her desk but ran after hearing shots, only to find a back door locked. She then watched as a colleague was shot, adding she didn’t glimpse the gunman.
“I heard footsteps a couple of times,” she said. “I was breathing really loud and was trying not to, but I couldn’t be quiet.”
The reporter recalled a June 2016 mass shooting attack on Orlando’s gay nightclub Pulse and how terrified people crouching inside had texted loved ones as dozens were killed. Said San Felice, “And there I was sitting under a desk, texting my parents and telling them I loved them.”
Survivors said the shooting — though it seemed agonizingly long — lasted mere minutes. And police said their response was swift.
Police spokesman Lt. Ryan Frashure said officers arrived within about 60 seconds and took the gunman into custody without an exchange of gunfire. About 170 people were then evacuated from the building, which houses other offices, many leaving with their hands up as police and other emergency vehicles arrived.
At the White House, spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said: “There is no room for violence, and we stick by that. Violence is never tolerated in any form, no matter whom it is against.”
Hours later, investigators remained on the cordoned-off site early Friday as they sought clues to the gunman’s motives.
“The shooter has not been very forthcoming, so we don’t have any information yet on motive,” Anne Arundel County Executive Steve Schuh said.
In 2012, Ramos filed a defamation lawsuit against the newspaper, alleging he was harmed by an article about his conviction in a criminal harassment case a year earlier. The suit was dismissed by a judge who wrote Ramos hadn’t shown “anything that was published about you is, in fact, false.” An appeals court later upheld the dismissal.
Following police activity late Thursday around a Laurel apartment complex where the suspect is believed to have resided, officers by 2 a.m. could be seen clearing the scene.
Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley said the community was grieving the attack on its paper.
“These are the guys that come to city council meetings, have to listen to boring politicians and sit there,” Buckley said. “They don’t make a lot of money. It’s just immoral that their lives should be in danger.”
The newspaper is part of Capital Gazette Communications, which also publishes the Maryland Gazette and CapitalGazette.com. It is owned by The Baltimore Sun.
The Associated Press Media Editors promised to help Capital Gazette journalists as they recover. An APME statement called on newspapers nationwide to help the paper continue its community coverage and fight for freedom of the press.
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By Associated Press
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ANNAPOLIS, Md. |Gunman attacks journalists at Maryland newspaper, 5 dead
New Post has been published on https://is.gd/wKUzS1
ANNAPOLIS, Md. |Gunman attacks journalists at Maryland newspaper, 5 dead
ANNAPOLIS, Md. —A man firing a shotgun and armed smoke grenades killed four journalists and a staffer at Maryland’s capital newspaper, then was swiftly taken into custody by police who rushed into the building.
Thursday’s attack on The Capital Gazette in Annapolis came amid months of verbal and online attacks on the “fake news media” from politicians and others from President Donald Trump on down. It prompted New York City police to immediately tighten security at news organizations in the nation’s media capital.
Police said the suspect in custody is a white man in his late 30s.
Acting Police Chief William Krampf of Anne Arundel County called it a targeted attack in which the gunman “looked for his victims.”
“This person was prepared today to come in, this person was prepared to shoot people,” Krampf said.
Journalists crawled under desks and sought other hiding places in what they described as minutes of terror as they heard the gunman’s footsteps and the repeated blasts of the shotgun as he moved about the newsroom.
Those killed included Rob Hiaasen, 59, the paper’s assistant managing editor and brother of novelist Carl Hiaasen. Carl Hiaasen said he was “devastated and heartsick” at losing his brother, “one of the most gentle and funny people I’ve ever known.” Also slain were Gerald Fischman, editorial page editor; features reporter Wendi Winters; reporter John McNamara, and sales assistant Rebecca Smith. The newspaper said two other employees had non-life threatening injuries and were later released from a hospital.
Krampf said the gunman was a Maryland resident, but didn’t name him.
Separately, a law enforcement official said the suspect was identified as Jarrod W. Ramos. The official wasn’t authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Phil Davis, a courts and crime reporter for the paper, tweeted that the gunman shot out the glass door to the office and fired into the newsroom, sending people scrambling under desks.
“There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you’re under your desk and then hear the gunman reload,” he wrote in a tweet. In a later interview appearing on the paper’s online site, Davis likened the newspaper office to a “war zone.”
“I’m a police reporter. I write about this stuff — not necessarily to this extent, but shootings and death — all the time,” he said. “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.”
Reporter Selene San Felice told CNN she was at her desk but ran after hearing shots, only to find a back door locked. She then watched as a colleague was shot, adding she didn’t glimpse the gunman.
“I heard footsteps a couple of times,” she said. “I was breathing really loud and was trying not to, but I couldn’t be quiet.”
The reporter recalled a June 2016 mass shooting attack on Orlando’s gay nightclub Pulse and how terrified people crouching inside had texted loved ones as dozens were killed. Said San Felice, “And there I was sitting under a desk, texting my parents and telling them I loved them.”
Survivors said the shooting — though it seemed agonizingly long — lasted mere minutes. And police said their response was swift.
Police spokesman Lt. Ryan Frashure said officers arrived within about 60 seconds and took the gunman into custody without an exchange of gunfire. About 170 people were then evacuated from the building, which houses other offices, many leaving with their hands up as police and other emergency vehicles arrived.
At the White House, spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said: “There is no room for violence, and we stick by that. Violence is never tolerated in any form, no matter whom it is against.”
Hours later, investigators remained on the cordoned-off site early Friday as they sought clues to the gunman’s motives.
“The shooter has not been very forthcoming, so we don’t have any information yet on motive,” Anne Arundel County Executive Steve Schuh said.
In 2012, Ramos filed a defamation lawsuit against the newspaper, alleging he was harmed by an article about his conviction in a criminal harassment case a year earlier. The suit was dismissed by a judge who wrote Ramos hadn’t shown “anything that was published about you is, in fact, false.” An appeals court later upheld the dismissal.
Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley said the community was grieving the attack on its paper.
“These are the guys that come to city council meetings, have to listen to boring politicians and sit there,” Buckley said. “They don’t make a lot of money. It’s just immoral that their lives should be in danger.”
The newspaper is part of Capital Gazette Communications, which also publishes the Maryland Gazette and CapitalGazette.com. It is owned by The Baltimore Sun.
The Associated Press Media Editors promised to help Capital Gazette journalists as they recover. An APME statement called on newspapers nationwide to help the paper continue its community coverage and fight for freedom of the press.
__
By Associated Press
___
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