Jarrod Ramos: Capital Gazette gunman found criminally responsible after shooting five dead in newsroom

A jury has found that the man who opened fire in the Capital Gazette newsroom in 2018, killing five people, is criminally responsible for the shooting and could not use insanity as a defence.

Three years after the killings, a jury found on Thursday that Jarrod Ramos, 41, had the mental and emotional capacity to be held responsible for the deaths.

Mr Ramos has been held in Anne Arundel County jail since the events of 28 June, 2018 and faces life in prison.

Before the start of his trial judging his sanity started, he had already pleaded guilty to 23 counts following the attack on the newspaper he had long felt animosity towards.

His public defenders requested the sanity trial which opened up the possibility for him to be sent to a maximum-security psychiatric hospital and possibly be released if the jury had not found him criminally responsible for the attack.

Mr Ramos’ lawyers said, along with four expert doctors, that because of mental disorders, he didn’t have the capacity to understand his crimes or to ensure that his actions followed the law.

Experts for the defence diagnosed Mr Ramos with autism spectrum disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and delusional disorder. They said these issues increased his obsession with the paper as well as the Maryland judiciary after he lost a defamation case against the Gazette. Living with that obsession for years, he planned attacks on the judges and reporters.

The lawyers described Mr Ramos as only having a meaningful relationship with his cat.

“Mental health is real,” defence attorney Matthew Connell argued. “Jarrod Ramos’s mental health is real.”