Annapolis Shooting Suspect Had A History Of Abusive Behavior Toward A Woman

The man suspected of killing five people as they worked in their Maryland

The man suspected of killing five people as they worked in their Maryland newsroom had a history of harassment against at least one woman. We shouldn’t be surprised.

Jarrod Ramos, 38, allegedly used a long gun to shoot through the glass door of the Capital Gazette on Thursday afternoon. The shooter killed page editor Gerald Fischman, editor Robert Hiaasen, sports reporter and editor John McNamara, sales assistant Rebecca Smith and reporter Wendi Winters.

As authorities work to determine a motive, court filings suggest Ramos was a serial harasser who targeted the paper in a failed defamation lawsuit when it brought his abuse to light.

A 2011 story in the paper titled “Jarrod wants to be your friend,” written by Eric Hartley, detailed Ramos’ criminal behavior against one woman.

After adding the former high school classmate on Facebook, Ramos turned her life “into a yearlong nightmare,” according to the story. The woman, who has not been identified, said that after a short conversation online, Ramos began to target her with threats, and on at least one occasion, told her to kill herself. She told a judge that Ramos had started calling the company she worked at.

The woman said she asked Ramos to stop, but it only appeared to infuriate him more.

“And he was not OK with that,” she told Judge Jonas Legum, according to the Capital Gazette’s story. “He would send me things and basically tell me, ‘You’re going to need a restraining order now.’ ‘You can’t make me stop. I know all these things about you.’ ‘I’m going to tell everyone about your life.’”

One email from Ramos, described in the article, told the victim to “have another drink and go have yourself, you cowardly little lush. Don’t contact you again? I don’t give a (expletive). (Expletive) you.”

The two had never met in person until Ramos’ court hearing that year. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor harassment charge and was sentenced to supervised probation for 18 months.

It is, sadly, unsurprising that a suspected mass shooter would have committed acts of violence or abuse against women in the past.

In 2015, HuffPost domestic violence reporter Melissa Jeltsen analyzed five years of mass shooting data compiled by gun violence prevention organization Everytown For Gun Safety. She looked at shootings in which at least four people were killed with a gun.

Jeltsen found that in 57 percent of mass shootings, the shooter targeted either a family member or an intimate partner. And 64 percent of mass shootings victims were women and children.

More recent studies have affirmed the pattern.

The suspect in the Parkland, Florida, shooting that left 17 dead earlier this year was reportedly abusive to an ex-girlfriend. The Sandy Hook Elementary shooter killed his mother before he slaughtered school children. The Pulse nightclub shooter beat both his wives. The list goes on.

Still stewing over the story about his abusive behavior four years later, Ramos sued the Capital Gazette and Hartley for defamation. A judge struck the case down after determining Hartley had not written anything factually untrue.

“There is absolutely not one piece of evidence, or an assertion by you that the statement was false,” the judge told Ramos.

Three years after that, Ramos allegedly grabbed a gun, walked into the Capital Gazette newsroom and opened fire.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.