Careless Whispers

In our Internet age, Facebook and other social media apps are extremely popular ....

Social Media Carries Many Hidden Dangers

.... and many under 40's live a lot of their lives, and derive a lot of their social worth value from their interactions on these Apps. 

The number of 'friends' or 'followers' they have count towards this 'worth', so many people will have hundreds of friends, most of whom in reality they hardly know. However there are hidden but real dangers inherent in this scatter gun app friends approach, to allowing too many people in to your life. With personal details out in public, that you might, with hindsight, have decided it would have been best to keep more private.

The Capital Gazette Murders ....

On the 28th of September 2021, Jarrod Ramos was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, for his attack on the Capital Gazette office in Annapolis, Maryland in June 2018. His full sentence is actually five consecutive life sentences for each murder he committed, plus an additional life sentence for attempted murder, and 345 more years in prison on gun and assault charges. So its safe to say that the 38 year old will die in prison.

Ramos, was at the time this all began, a federal employee with the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, and was educated with a degree in computer engineering. His grudge against the newspaper and its staff was initiated after it ran an article written by Eric Thomas Hartley in July 2011, under the headline "Jarrod wants to be your friend". The article had described how a woman had been harassed on-line, describing her ordeal as a “yearlong nightmare”.

However the story and its murderous outcome all started when the unnamed woman had accepted a friend request from Jarrod Ramos on Facebook, without really knowing who he actually was (mistake #1). This was ill advised, but she's probably not the first or the last, to let their desire to have lots of friends on social media, get in the way of their better judgement.

She admitted in the article, that she had had to search online afterwards, to work out if she and Ramos had really gone to the same high school, or even who he was. But alarm bells should have wrung loudly, when he then messaged her to thank her for 'being the only person ever to say hello or be nice to him in school.' This is nearly always the sign of an obsessive loaner, who has issues with women generally and who has fixated on one woman as being different. 

He then started discussing his personal issues with people, and initially she tried to be friendly, she shared some personal information with him e.g. email address (mistake #2), and offer some advice, even going so far as to suggesting that he get some counselling for his issues (mistake #3).

Like most of these incel loaner types, he couldn't accept that it was he, not others, who had the problems. So he then started emailing her regularly, alternately asking for her for emotional support, or abusing her, or telling her to kill herself. A typical example of this behaviour was an email in April 2010 that said 'Have another drink and go hang yourself, you cowardly little lush. Don't contact you again? I don't give a fuck. Fuck you,”

He also contacted her employer, making claims about her and trying to get her fired .... they had actually never physically met. She did lose her job, but couldn't prove that his contact with her employers had any influence on this. However she complained to the police about his behaviour, and after this he stopped emailing for a few months, but then he resumed again. 

She then went to court and filed a no contact order, and complaint ... he was called to District Court and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour harassment charge, with a suspended a 90-day jail sentence, which placed him on probation, and ordering him to continue in therapy, and to not contact the victim or her family in any way.... this finally stopped him harassing the woman. 

But the article in the newspaper about the incident, turned his wrath on its authors, Eric Thomas Hartley, and the news staff at the Capital Gazette. His adopted the Twitter handle - @EricHartleyFrnd -  which indicated the primary focus of his rage, and his page was filled with rants against Hartley. However this wasn't enough to vent his anger. 

In July 2012, he sued the newspaper for defamation and accused the newspaper of "exposing him to public scorn, hatred, contempt, and ridicule." He also stated that the "defamatory statements were and continue to be false." His lawsuit stated that the defendants in the case used the "defamatory statements with negligence, reckless disregard," and that as a result of this he had suffered "harm and continues to incur harm." In October 2012, Ramos filed another 22-page long complaint, which also alleged invasion of privacy.

However he offered no supporting evidence for either claim but when it went to court the judge asked Ramos to point out "a single statement in the article that was actually false, or to give a single example of how he had been harmed by the article". The court statement says that Ramos could not do so. The judge therefore ruled in favour of the defendants, who had asked for the case to be dismissed.

Jarrod Ramos Arrested Without Gunfire ....

On 28 June 2018, armed with a shotgun and smoke grenades, Ramos broke into the office, barricaded the exits, and then opened fire on the staff as they took cover under their desks in what police described as a "targeted attack." He managed to kill five people before the Police arrived, and surrounded Ramos, who surrendered without exchanging any gunfire with them. Ironically, his main point of hatred, Eric Thomas Hartley was no longer employed by the newspaper, so wasn't amongst the victims or threatened. The police said they had also had to evacuate 170 people from the building, which housed 30 other businesses during the response to the shooting.

As Ramos readily admitted the attack, and has never shown any remorse for his actions, also saying that his "greatest regret in life" is that he did not kill the entire newsroom staff. The only remaining doubt about his sentence, was if he should spend his time in a medical prison or ordinary prison, as his defence had argued that he was mentally ill at the time of the crime. A jury took less than two hours to decide Ramos should serve time in prison rather than in a mental health facility.

Who am I to disagree, and in fact I find the mentally ill defence for terrible, but well planned and prepared crimes, weak to non existent. If your mentally fit enough to plan and execute a crime, then you know right from wrong and should face your time in open prison ... in the UK we send our worst animals like 'Yorkshire Ripper' Peter Sutcliffe, to a cushy life in Broadmoor Hospital, instead of the tough regime in a high security prison ... how can that be punishment?

But this whole incident, stemmed from someone just casually accepting a friend request on Facebook, from a person they didn't recall, and who they had hardly known while at school ... a careless gesture on social media that had tragic consequences for a large number of people.

No ones fault, but just an unhappy aspect of modern life ...