Law enforcement officials identified the suspected gunman who shot up the Capital Gazette newspaper building in Annapolis, Maryland, as a 39-year-old male that allegedly had a personal “vendetta” against the newspaper and had made repeated threats towards the newspaper on social media.
NBC Washington reports:
One senior official told NBC News the suspect is a 39-year-old white man with a criminal history of vandalism and harassment.
The suspect reportedly damaged his fingers so he could not be identified, which reportedly led investigators to use facial recognition to identify him.
NBC News’ Tom Winter reported on Twitter that the shooter had a history with the newspaper, having sued them in 2012 for defamation.
The Capital Gazette reported in 2015 that the suspect’s lawsuit against the newspaper had been thrown out by a judge because “the article was based on public records and [the suspect] presented no evidence it was inaccurate.”
The Capital Gazette reported at the time:
[The suspect], who represented himself, appealed the decision to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, which upheld Lamasney’s ruling in an opinion filed Thursday.
“A lawyer would almost certainly have told him not to proceed with this case,” the court wrote. “It reveals a fundamental failure to understand what defamation law is and, more particularly, what defamation law is not.”
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Source: The Daily Wire
