President Donald Trump will shortly issue a presidential proclamation lowering flags to half-staff to honor the memory of journalists recently killed at the Annapolis Capital Gazette.
NEW: Trump to issue proclamation shortly ordering flags to half-staff to honor #CapitalGazette staffers killed last week. Annapolis, MD mayor says his initial request for flags to be lowered was declined.
— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) July 3, 2018
The Capital Gazette newsroom suffered a mass shooting Thursday when an aggrieved gunman fired multiple shotgun blasts through their door. He has now been charged with five counts of first-degree murder.
The gunman had a storied history with the newspaper, with multiple failed attempts to sue it for defamation. The Capital Gazette wrote a story about the gunman’s continued harassment of a woman online and in-person, which eventually led to him losing his job for the federal government. He wrote a series of threatening letters to the paper and engaged in other troubling behavior ahead of the shooting.
Trump previously addressed the shooting at a recent White House appearance saying “journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their jobs.”