

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.


Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.

Gun rights activist Jeff Hulbert of Annapolis, Maryland, shows a poster as local residents gather outside The Anglican Catholic Church St. Andrew & St. Margaret of Scotland to show solidarity after a shooting at the Eugene Simpson Stadium Park June 14, 2017 in Alexandria, Virginia. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
As the nation mourned yet another senseless mass shooting--this time at a local newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland on Thursday in which five people were murdered--details of the alleged gunman expose yet another perpetrator with a history of mysognistic and threatening behavior towards women.
On Friday it was reported that the man arrested by police at the scene of the massacre inside The Capital Gazette's offices, Jarrod Warren Ramos--who had a "bitter history" with the newspaper going back years--had been charged by local prosecutors with five counts of first degree murder.
According to the Associated Press:
Ramos filed a failed lawsuit against the paper in 2012, alleging the newspaper, a columnist and an editor defamed him in an article about his conviction in a criminal harassment case in 2011.
According to court documents, five days after Ramos pleaded guilty to criminal harassment, the newspaper published a story describing allegations by a woman who claimed Ramos harassed her online for months.
The article said Ramos had contacted the woman on Facebook and thanked her "for being the only person ever to say, 'Hello,' or be nice to him in school."
The woman told the newspaper that Ramos appeared to be having some problems, so she wrote back and tried to help, suggesting a counseling center. She said that set off months of emails in which Ramos sometimes asked for help, but other times called her vulgar names and told her to kill herself. She told The Capital that she told him to stop, but the emails continued. She said she called police and the emails stopped for months, but then started up again "nastier than ever," the article said.
After a court rejected his lawsuit claiming defamation by the paper, Ramos' ire reportedly intensified and he increasingly targeted the newspaper and its staff with threats. As Christian Christensen, professor of journalism at Stockholm University in Sweden, pointed out Ramos' profile fits a familiar profile:
Separately, Christensen simply pointed out that the scourge of gun violence in the United States--from the daily violence of injuries, homicide and suicide nationwide to the steady stream of mass casualty events like Thursday in Annapolis--continues unabated, with much of it fueled by what he characterized as the nation's "destructive, macho obsession with guns."
Meanwhile, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) echoed the sentiments of many as she connected Thursday's shooting to the larger and frightening trend that means nobody is allowed to feel safe in a culture where gun violence has reached epidemic proportions:
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
As the nation mourned yet another senseless mass shooting--this time at a local newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland on Thursday in which five people were murdered--details of the alleged gunman expose yet another perpetrator with a history of mysognistic and threatening behavior towards women.
On Friday it was reported that the man arrested by police at the scene of the massacre inside The Capital Gazette's offices, Jarrod Warren Ramos--who had a "bitter history" with the newspaper going back years--had been charged by local prosecutors with five counts of first degree murder.
According to the Associated Press:
Ramos filed a failed lawsuit against the paper in 2012, alleging the newspaper, a columnist and an editor defamed him in an article about his conviction in a criminal harassment case in 2011.
According to court documents, five days after Ramos pleaded guilty to criminal harassment, the newspaper published a story describing allegations by a woman who claimed Ramos harassed her online for months.
The article said Ramos had contacted the woman on Facebook and thanked her "for being the only person ever to say, 'Hello,' or be nice to him in school."
The woman told the newspaper that Ramos appeared to be having some problems, so she wrote back and tried to help, suggesting a counseling center. She said that set off months of emails in which Ramos sometimes asked for help, but other times called her vulgar names and told her to kill herself. She told The Capital that she told him to stop, but the emails continued. She said she called police and the emails stopped for months, but then started up again "nastier than ever," the article said.
After a court rejected his lawsuit claiming defamation by the paper, Ramos' ire reportedly intensified and he increasingly targeted the newspaper and its staff with threats. As Christian Christensen, professor of journalism at Stockholm University in Sweden, pointed out Ramos' profile fits a familiar profile:
Separately, Christensen simply pointed out that the scourge of gun violence in the United States--from the daily violence of injuries, homicide and suicide nationwide to the steady stream of mass casualty events like Thursday in Annapolis--continues unabated, with much of it fueled by what he characterized as the nation's "destructive, macho obsession with guns."
Meanwhile, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) echoed the sentiments of many as she connected Thursday's shooting to the larger and frightening trend that means nobody is allowed to feel safe in a culture where gun violence has reached epidemic proportions:
As the nation mourned yet another senseless mass shooting--this time at a local newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland on Thursday in which five people were murdered--details of the alleged gunman expose yet another perpetrator with a history of mysognistic and threatening behavior towards women.
On Friday it was reported that the man arrested by police at the scene of the massacre inside The Capital Gazette's offices, Jarrod Warren Ramos--who had a "bitter history" with the newspaper going back years--had been charged by local prosecutors with five counts of first degree murder.
According to the Associated Press:
Ramos filed a failed lawsuit against the paper in 2012, alleging the newspaper, a columnist and an editor defamed him in an article about his conviction in a criminal harassment case in 2011.
According to court documents, five days after Ramos pleaded guilty to criminal harassment, the newspaper published a story describing allegations by a woman who claimed Ramos harassed her online for months.
The article said Ramos had contacted the woman on Facebook and thanked her "for being the only person ever to say, 'Hello,' or be nice to him in school."
The woman told the newspaper that Ramos appeared to be having some problems, so she wrote back and tried to help, suggesting a counseling center. She said that set off months of emails in which Ramos sometimes asked for help, but other times called her vulgar names and told her to kill herself. She told The Capital that she told him to stop, but the emails continued. She said she called police and the emails stopped for months, but then started up again "nastier than ever," the article said.
After a court rejected his lawsuit claiming defamation by the paper, Ramos' ire reportedly intensified and he increasingly targeted the newspaper and its staff with threats. As Christian Christensen, professor of journalism at Stockholm University in Sweden, pointed out Ramos' profile fits a familiar profile:
Separately, Christensen simply pointed out that the scourge of gun violence in the United States--from the daily violence of injuries, homicide and suicide nationwide to the steady stream of mass casualty events like Thursday in Annapolis--continues unabated, with much of it fueled by what he characterized as the nation's "destructive, macho obsession with guns."
Meanwhile, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) echoed the sentiments of many as she connected Thursday's shooting to the larger and frightening trend that means nobody is allowed to feel safe in a culture where gun violence has reached epidemic proportions: