Posted on 07/11/2018 11:45:17 AM PDT by Steely Tom
The 1997 senior yearbook for Arundel High School is titled “After All is Said and Done.” In it, smiling high school students attend drama club or pose for photos.
At the back of one copy, an outgoing senior wrote:
“You know it and I know it — this class, this school, this whole damn place is full of s(---). Anyways, only a few more hours till it’s out of our lives forever. I hope life gets better once we’re gone. I’m sure it will,” Jarrod Ramos purportedly wrote in the back of the 1997 yearbook. He graduated from Arundel High in 1997.
The signature is similar to one on a document formatted like a court record sent 21 years later to The Capital’s former lawyer, expressing the “objective of killing every person present” at 888 Bestgate Road in Annapolis.
For Ramos, after all was said and done, five people would be dead and he would be charged with five counts of first-degree murder. Police found and arrested Ramos, a Laurel resident, in the aftermath of a mass shooting that killed five staff members of The Capital.
Ramos’ note in the yearbook seems to show a man already fed up with the world around him.
Based on his own words, conversations with people who knew him, people who could barely remember him, his social media accounts, court records and the people he scared, Ramos was a calculated and manipulative loner who became angry when things didn’t go his way.
Those afflicted by him were convinced he would one day hurt someone.
High school
Ramos wasn’t well-known in high school, according to some of his classmates. In a private Facebook group full of 1997 alumni, former classmates went back and forth trying to remember his presence.
One student, who wished to remain anonymous but gave The Capital his yearbook, said he would sit with Ramos during lunch while they were in 10th grade. They sat together for about a semester. And, like many interactions with Ramos, it was relatively nondescript.
“He was quiet … he was an outcast of the outcasts,” the student said. “We would sit there and talk about whatever kids talked about. I remember part of it was feeling a little bit sorry for him. Nobody paid attention to him, and I don’t really think he had friends.”
The student didn’t talk with Ramos after high school. They didn’t exchange phone numbers. He didn’t think about Ramos until his name flashed across news reports: Five dead. Jarrod Ramos apprehended.
Ramos’ picture only appears in the 1997 senior yearbook once. On page 128, Ramos is smiling while wearing an overlaid tuxedo — the kind that is draped over someone during a school photo shoot.
He is bespectacled with long hair parted down the middle. He has a slight mustache and goatee.
Contrast this with his booking photo: long, unkempt hair, red splotches on his nose and a dead stare. During his bail bond hearing, he didn’t speak, choosing to stare straight ahead. Blinking.
Ramos’ attorney declined a request to speak with him.
Jenny Johnson, who was a year ahead of Ramos, remembers students making fun of his glasses. Another time someone threw chewing gum into his long hair, she said.
She remembers Ramos as a rude, arrogant and isolated student who made fun of her breasts and asked another girl if he could “ski her slopes.”
“People treated him like dirt,” Johnson said.
Rachel Carey — another 1997 Arundel High School graduate — said she didn’t speak to Ramos, and it was similar for many of the other students. She helps run the class Facebook page, and many of the contributors there were shocked about the events and struggled to even remember Ramos.
They are looking for ways to contribute and help those harmed by Ramos’ actions, Carey said.
“The community is pulling together and focusing on how to make a positive impact,” Carey said. “We are still fleshing out what to do specifically. I hope it brings awareness to cyberbullying and stalking. It sounds like everybody did what they could, but the laws weren’t there or strong enough to prevent it from going further.”
The school’s former principal, William Myers, also doesn’t remember Ramos. Myers started as principal in 1997. He took over for Midgie Sledge, who could not be reached for comment. Teachers reached by The Capital couldn’t remember him or didn’t have him in their classrooms.
Even in 1997, there were some tools to intervene with students who were troubled or in distress, Myers said.
“I can honestly say he wasn’t on my radar screen,” he said. “I didn’t make the connection immediately until I saw he was an Arundel graduate. Those classes I had the five years I was there, I loved every one of them.”
After high school
Not much is known about Ramos after high school. Through a 2011 story about his harassment case, Ramos was a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics employee with no previous criminal record and a degree in computer engineering.
During high school, he earned an internship with the National Security Agency, a position that would have required a top secret security clearance, NSA spokesman Christopher Augustine said. Most recently Ramos was hired in 2013 to a government contract job that also required a clearance, according to court records.
In 1997, he enrolled at Capitol College, a small school in Laurel focused on information technology. He graduated in 2006 with a Bachelor of Science degree in computer engineering.
He played chess competitively from 1999 until 2003, according to the U.S. Chess Federation. In 2003, he finished third in his division at the Maryland Open.
His U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics job began in 2007 and he maintained contracted IT jobs until 2014. It isn’t clear if Ramos worked since 2014. In court filings, he complained his legal troubles cost him a job opportunity.
A Bureau of Labor Statistics official emailed the contractor who oversaw Ramos in 2014, asking that he be removed from his post over “suitability concerns.” Like many other people who crossed paths with him, Ramos took the company to court. He won the case and was repaid a signing bonus, but the company told Ramos it had no other opportunities for him. He lost his job.
A calculated harasser
Much has been made about Ramos’ harassment of a former high school student. In an extended phone interview with The Capital, she detailed how Ramos was calculating and manipulative. She spoke on the condition that The Capital not use her name, which has been changed since high school.
“It started in 2009. It was friendly,” she said. “Now I don’t trust anybody.”
According to emails reviewed by The Capital, Ramos was trying to convince his former classmate it was her fault he was mad and angry. He would bounce between seeking help and complaining she wasn’t opening herself up to him. Ramos used his old Capitol College email address.
He would twist the nature of the conversation to make himself look like the victim, she said.
Eventually, the woman would tell Ramos to stop contacting her. He did not like that.
“Have another drink and go hang yourself, you cowardly little lush,” he wrote on April 23, 2010, at 12:59 p.m. “Don’t contact you again? I don’t give a s---. F--- you. I am aware of my issues and working (sic) them with my therapist. That’s me this time.”
She ultimately sought peace orders against Ramos, who eventually plead guilty to a harassment charge. After the peace order was awarded, Ramos fought to have his criminal record expunged. And while the peace orders were active, she said he would look for ways to antagonize her without contacting her directly, such as mentioning her on Twitter but not tagging her in the message.
“He knows exactly what he is doing; he is extremely intelligent and calculating,” she said. “He knows right from wrong. He planned everything he did to me. He knew what he was doing.”
Attorney Jack Hyatt said peace orders are tools used to prevent contact between people. He said Ramos’ case — which ended in the death of five people — was unusual. He advises his clients to stay away when a peace order is granted and most of the time they oblige.
But it also doesn’t deprive someone of free speech. An example he gave is someone pointing a gun at a person and saying, “I’m going to kill you.” That could violate the order and be a threat.
“If that person is pointing the gun 180 degrees away from the complainant and says I might shoot you someday, that is free speech,” Hyatt said. “It is an order to stay away. And stay away is defined by the judge.”
A writer for The Capital heard about the case in 2011 and wrote a column. This angered Ramos, who filed a defamation case against the paper.
Fixated on The Capital
The 2011 column in The Capital detailed Ramos’ criminal harassment of his classmate.
In 2012, he sued the paper for defamation, losing the case in court. Maryland’s second-highest court upheld the ruling in the newspaper’s favor. Ramos waited until there was a week left in the statute of limitations before filing the suit, according to court records.
Ramos performed poorly in the court, losing both his defamation case and an appeal. He represented himself and didn’t argue that the charges were false, but that they were unfair.
Judge Charles Moylan didn’t mince words in his ruling.
“The appellant was charged with a criminal act. The appellant perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant plead guilty to having perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant was punished for his criminal act. He is not entitled to equal sympathy with his victim and may not blithely dismiss her as a ‘bipolar drunkard.’ He does not appear to have learned his lesson,” Moylan wrote in the 2015 opinion.
These decisions enraged Ramos, who created social media accounts using the reporter’s and judge’s names related to those cases.
Ramos continued attacking The Capital for years. Reddit.com users on the President Donald Trump subreddit, The_Donald, unearthed a blog believed to belong to Ramos. The blog detailed Ramos’ fight with the newspaper. The blog’s web address includes “jwramos79,” which is in sync with his first and last name and birth year.
His Twitter account used photos of former Capital writer Eric Hartley and former editor Tom Marquardt. On their heads is a brand shaped like two diamonds with a line drawn down the middle. That symbol is called the “Brand of Sacrifice” and appears in the Japanese anime “Berserk” used in ritual killings within the show.
Ramos tweeted about “journalist hell.” He tweeted about “forthcoming rape and murder.” He sent racist messages to a Capital reporter who is Chinese.
On his blog, he wrote an ominous message about his mission.
“The authority that permits their power also stands poised to punish its abuse,” the site says. “Even kings must answer to God, and a modern-day Inquisition is at hand. The potential judgment is no less severe; the carnage differs only in literal terms. As this search for Truth commences, a crusader they could not kill approaches.”
Bet He had a copy of “Dazed and Confused” .... Sounds like he was paraphrasing Randall “Pink” Floyd
Thank you for the thread.
I was just thinking of this today - why haven’t we heard more revelations about this jerk?
He should’ve used an AR-15 if he wanted publicity.
It is amazing how fast this one left the front pages.
I don’t know what the solution is, but some people are 99.99% doomed at a certain age.
Jordan Peterson has identified the statistic that kids who are violent at age 5 (IIRC) are likely to be hopelessly violent by age 15 and likely not fixable. You can see it coming. Most likely you can’t do anything about it.
And people with no social skills and bad personalities? If you’re totally on the outside in Jr HS or HS and just have no ability to connect or make friends with people, well, you are not likely to develop those skills later. So the sad and lonely 13-year-old is very likely to be sad and lonely forever.
Of course some people triumph over the odds.
But I see very little “parenting” in the world today. Kids are left to their own devices with no rules, no supervision, and no guidance. I think the number of young people are already on a hopeless downslope is quite high these days.
Most recently Ramos was hired in 2013 to a government contract job that also required a clearance, according to court records.
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Gives great confidence in our vetting systems, doesn’t it?
I attended Arundel HS in the 50’s, 9th and 10th grades. It was a dead end then.
It is amazing how fast this one left the front pages.
I'm guessing we haven't heard anything about Jarrod Ramos because whatever is coming out about him is not helpful to the anti-gunner's cause.
Both of our children have attended the same school system from kindergarten through high school.
My daughter — who just graduated — knows of a number of kids (girls, mostly) who were friendly and "normal" in elementary school, then went off the rails completely.
In most cases (maybe all), divorce and violence at home had something (maybe everything) to do with it.
Several "transitioned" to "other genders." This seems to be a fairly common phenomenon.
Others got into drugs, sex, or both.
Very sad. It seems that when things go berserk at home, some kids kind of lose their reason for holding on to their identity. I can understand that, and my heart goes out to them, but there's nothing I can do about it.
Sad, isn’t it? I think ALOT of the problem is that MSM, TV in general, “entertainment industry” in general, many liberal teachers, etc. all seem to support that being “weird” is more attractive and/or somehow morally superior than more “mainstream/traditional” choices and identity markers.
I have always thought that it would be helpful to society and our culture, if more ordinary, hard-working people would be held up as being “accomplished”. Probably just a fantasy, but what would it be like if the MSM and the “entertainment industry” promoted these types of people: military heroes, those who make real contributions to their communities by their actions, those who raise their children into successful adults and good citizens - instead of - always playing a message that the more perverse, illegal, off-base among us are (a) to be celebrated and promoted and (b) usually portrayed as victims of the “normal” people.
Just my thoughts.
Yep, if he was a Trump supporter we would still be hearing about him.
Same story as Columbine through to Parkland.
Those are good thoughts, IMHO.
My daughter and I watched The Bridge To Terabithia a couple of nights ago. Very, very good movie. I highly recommend it.
Main character's father is a man who works with his hands, sells produce raised on his farm. He is portrayed as somewhat harsh, a dad who worries about everything, including his children, and how to earn enough to support his family.
But he is fundamentally decent and fair-minded, and he loves his children very much. He's just trying to hang on, doing the best he can.
In that movie, the kind of man you are describing is celebrated and cast in a positive light.
The POS from Parkland was picked on also and considered strange. Emma Gonzalez, the commie loving Cuban lesbo “survivor”, admitted she in fact picked on him along with others.
I think there are very few people who are actually pure inherent “bad”. And few who are pure inherent “good”. Most fall in between and a decent amount of training either way may push them one way or the other.
And “sad and lonely” is not the same as “violent”. I was kicked around by my peers alot as a youngster, mostly for what? Being “ugly”. Yet that did not turn me into a killer. OTOH I had a great family, including often visiting cousins who were like my lifeline for friendship. I’m still a bit shy of my age “peers” but other people I still tend to engage.
But there is terrible parenting today. You’re right - no rules or guidance - yet many are helicopter and constantly at the beck and call of the child. There’s alot of selfishness no doubt from all this.
> “He knows exactly what he is doing; he is extremely intelligent and calculating,” she said.
So we’re supposed to believe that an extreme social outcast was able to plan a deep social interaction over a significant period of time with precision and calculation.
Just one of many reasons I’m not buying the one-sided presentation of events. I think there was a lot more going on that the Capital Gazette wants to tell us.
Society faces a tough dilemma in figuring out what to do about mentally ill people like this guy and Cruz. The legal system offers few protections for their victims and none for potential victims
Its not about the gun. Its about the murderer.
I had my first job with this paper - back when it was called “The Evening Crab Wrapper.” So sad.
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