Capital Gazette shooting

At a two-week trial, six survivors of the shooting gave evidence, and expert witnesses on both sides also gave testimony. Expert witnesses for the defense determined that Ramos had autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, delusional disorder and narcissistic personality disorder; expert witnesses for the prosecution agreed that Ramos had mental health conditions, including schizotypal and narcissistic personality disorders, but testified that he was sane at the time of the killings. A court-appointed forensic psychiatrist testified that Ramos was motivated by a fixation on revenge; that Ramos had expressed regret that he had been unable to kill everyone in the newsroom and the state's attorney; and that Ramos had carefully planned the attack on the newspaper's office after determining that a courthouse, his initial target, was too secure. In July 2021, the jury found Ramos criminally responsible, rejecting Ramos's insanity defense and determining that he committed the killings while mentally competent and capable of conforming his actions to the law.

On September 28, 2021, Ramos was sentenced to five life terms plus 345 years in prison.

A memorial to the five murdered Capital Gazette staffers, entitled Guardians of the First Amendment, was unveiled in Newman Park in Annapolis on June 28, 2021, the third anniversary of the shooting. It consists of five pillars and a stone with an engraving of the text of the First Amendment.

In December 2020, Wendi Winters, who rushed the shooter and was credited with saving the lives of her colleagues by allowing them time to escape, was posthumously awarded the Carnegie Medal by the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission.

Nearly one year after the shooting, Tribune Publishing Chairman David Dreier established the Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation (FJM Foundation), which aims to construct a memorial in Washington, D.C. to honor journalists who have died in pursuit of the truth. Congress unanimously passed the Fallen Journalists Memorial Act in December 2020. In the same month, President Donald Trump signed the act into law, authorizing the FJM Foundation to establish a commemorative work honoring fallen journalists.

In March and April 2019, the Maryland General Assembly voted unanimously to designate June 28 "Freedom of the Press Day" in honor of the victims.

On April 2, 2019, the News Leaders Association selected the staff of the Capital Gazette and The Baltimore Sun as the winners of the Al Neuharth Breaking News Reporting Award for their coverage of the shootings. The Capital Gazette staff were also named as finalists for the Burl Osborne Award for Editorial Leadership – Small, and the Visual Journalism Award – Small.

The Capital was awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation on April 15, 2019, to "honor the journalists, staff and editorial board of the Capital Gazette, Annapolis, Maryland, for their courageous response to the largest killing of journalists in U.S. history in their newsroom on June 28, 2018, and for demonstrating unflagging commitment to covering the news and serving their community at a time of unspeakable grief." The citation also included a $100,000 bequest "to further the newspaper's journalistic mission", and the editorial staff were named as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Writing.

On June 28, 2018, a mass shooting occurred at the offices of The Capital, a newspaper serving Annapolis, Maryland, United States. The gunman, Jarrod Ramos, killed five employees with a shotgun and injured two others who were trying to escape. Ramos was arrested shortly thereafter. He pleaded guilty but not criminally responsible to 23 charges; in July 2021, a jury found him criminally responsible.

An indictment was handed up on July 20, 2018, included five counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted first-degree murder, six counts of first-degree assault, and 11 counts of the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.

Jarrod W. Ramos was indicted on 23 counts by Anne Arundel County prosecutors in July 2018. Ramos was charged with five counts of first-degree murder; one count of attempted first-degree murder, for shooting at photographer Paul Gillespie; six counts of first-degree assault related to the attacks on Gillespie, staff writers Selene San Felice, Phil Davis, and Rachael Pacella, reporting intern Anthony Messenger, and sales associate Janel Cooley; and 11 counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony or violent crime. He was ordered to be held without bail after he was determined to be a flight risk and a danger to the community, and was placed on suicide watch while in custody of law enforcement.

On August 20, 2018, Ramos pleaded not guilty to all charges. On April 29, 2019, Ramos entered a plea of not guilty and not criminally responsible, and the judge ordered that he be evaluated by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. At a pretrial hearing held on October 21, 2019, the judge ruled that based on the Health Department's report, Ramos is legally sane and can be held criminally responsible for his actions and his pending trial should proceed. The following week, Ramos pleaded guilty but not responsible by reason of insanity to all 23 counts. Since he pleaded not criminally responsible, the remaining legal issue was whether Ramos is legally responsible for the multiple murders.

The Capital published an editorial on July 1, 2018, signed by its entire staff of reporters and editors, thanking the citizens of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County for their support following the shooting.

In December 2018, the staff of Capital Gazette Communications was selected as a recipient of Time's Person of the Year 2018, as one of "The Guardians", a collection of journalists from around the world in their fight against the "War on Truth".

Annapolis mayor Gavin Buckley announced that the city planned to hold a summer music festival that will act as a celebration of the freedom of the press and as a memorial for the journalists who were killed. The concert was held on July 28, 2018, under the title Annapolis Rising: A Benefit for The Capital Gazette and Free Press. The event featured performances by the rock bands Good Charlotte and Less Than Jake, a presentation by comedian Jordan Klepper, and a speech by Washington Post editor-in-chief Martin Baron. Proceeds from this event will be used to benefit a fund established for the victims and survivors, as well as journalism scholarships.

In July 2018, the equipment manager of the Washington Capitals, the 2018 Stanley Cup champions, brought the Stanley Cup to the Capital Gazette's temporary office to boost the employees' morale.

In 2012, Ramos sued The Capital in a defamation case he brought over a 2011 newspaper article reporting on his guilty plea for criminal harassment. After multiple appeals from Ramos, the defamation case against the newspaper was dismissed in 2015 by Prince George's County circuit court judge Maureen M. Lamasney, who ruled in favor of the paper because their reporting was based on publicly available records and Ramos had produced no evidence that the article was inaccurate. Lamasney wrote in her court opinion that Ramos's complaint was "a fundamental failure to understand what defamation law is, and more particularly, what defamation law is not".

The Capital had published an article in 2011 about Ramos being put on probation for harassing an acquaintance from high school through social media and email. Ramos, angered by the article, brought a defamation lawsuit against the newspaper but a judge later dismissed the suit. Ramos is alleged to have sent enraged letters and messages to The Capital threatening to attack its newsroom and staff, but no legal action was taken after the threats were received.

Former Capital editor and publisher Thomas Marquardt said Ramos began harassing the staff of the newspaper after the article on him was published in 2011. In 2013, Marquardt contacted the Anne Arundel County Police Department about Ramos's behavior, but the department did not pursue the report. Marquardt also consulted the newspaper's attorneys about filing a restraining order against Ramos, and recalled telling them, "This is a guy who is going to come in and shoot us." After his lawsuit against the newspaper was dismissed, Ramos opened a Twitter account, which he used to attack the newspaper and taunt its owners and staff. A former FBI senior profiler speculated that Ramos was "an injustice collector", whom she described as "someone who goes through life ... collect[ing] injustices, real or imagined."

Ramos's use of the justice system as a form of attempting to get his way was seen in at least two other cases. When he was dismissed from his job at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over "suitability concerns", he sued the agency and won the case, yet was still dismissed from the agency. In 2009, a former classmate took out peace orders (used to prevent contact between people), followed by criminal harassment charges, which he lost. In an affidavit, the harassment victim wrote, "I am physically afraid of Mr. Ramos, and that he may cause me serious physical injury and/or death."

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Capital Gazette shooting was one of two incidents in which multiple journalists were killed in the United States since the organization began compiling data in 1992. The other incident was the murders of Alison Parker and Adam Ward during a live television interview in 2015.

Jarrod Warren Ramos (born December 21, 1979) was captured by police and taken into custody as a suspect, but refused to identify himself. Early reports said that the gunman mutilated his fingertips to avoid identification, but a law-enforcement official later stated that an issue with the fingerprint machine had caused the difficulties in identifying the suspect, and that his fingertips had not been mutilated. The suspect was also carrying a backpack with smoke bombs, flashbang devices, and grenades. The police later announced that the attack had been targeted specifically at Capital Gazette Communications.