Capital Gazette staffers describe minute-by-minute what happened the day of the shooting
- Five employees of the Capital Gazette were killed on Thursday when a gunman fired into the newspaper's office.
- The Capital newspaper and The Baltimore Sun have the full account of the tragic day, reporting what multiple employees were doing before and after the fateful event.
On Thursday afternoon, a gunman walked into the newsroom of the Capital Gazette where 11 employees were working and opened fire, killing five people and wounding two.
On Sunday, the front pages of The Capital and The Baltimore Sun, which bought the Capital Gazette in 2014, told the full accounts of the tragic day, reporting what multiple employees went through minute-by-minute.
Multiple employees told the papers they hid under their desks as soon as they heard shots ring out, even though some never saw the shooter.
Reporter Selene San Felice said she curled around summer intern Anthony Messenger. San Felice told The Sun she thinks she may have bit him to prevent herself from screaming out and revealing their hiding spot to the shooter.
From under his desk, staff writer Phil Davis texted somebody who was able to call 911. The Anne Arunderl county police chief said the first officer pulled up to the office building within a minute of the first call to the station.
"It is a different feeling when it happens around you," Davis told The Capital. "You are helpless. You are hopeless. To then walk over the bodies of those people who were shot for something they had nothing to do with, it is probably something I'll never be able to walk away from. I feel so terribly for everyone's family."
Multiple employees were out of the office at the time of the shooting, The Sun reported. The majority of the advertising staff happened to be off-site at a meeting with The Sun. Editor Rick Hutzell was in Ocean City at the time of the shooting. Political reporter Chase Cook (who wrote The Capital's story) and photographer Josh McKerrow were spared, too.
Rob Hiaasen was not as lucky as some of his colleagues. Thursday was his wife Maria's 58th birthday. She told The Sun she was going to open her present from her husband when he got home that night. But Rob never returned home.
Maria said she read the card her late husband wrote but hasn't opened the bag with her present. "I can't bring myself to open it just yet," she said in a text.