Annapolis Shooting: Reporter Hid, Tweeted From Bloody 'War Zone'

ANNAPOLIS, MD — When a gunman opened fire Thursday at The Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, reporters and photographers at the paper took cover and then began to tweet about their whereabouts and what was still unfolding at the paper, providing a harrowing, real-time account of a newsroom-turned-war zone.

"Active shooter 888 Bestgate please help us," tweeted Anthony Messenger, an intern at the paper.

Joshua McKerrow, a photojournalist at The Baltimore Sun and The Capital Gazette, tweeted that he wasn't at the office at the time of the shooting. "On my way to scene," he wrote. Less than 30 minutes later, McKerrow was at the scene and had posted photos he had taken of the police presence at the building.

"Heartbroken," he later tweeted.

Phil Davis, a reporter who covers crime at the paper, tweeted that he was hiding under his desk as the gunman opened fire. Once Davis got to safety, he knew that some of his colleagues had been killed in the shooting. Still, he did what he normally would were he reporting from a crime scene and began to post updates about what had happened inside the building.

"I will tweet what I can while I wait to be interviewed by police," he began.

Davis wrote that a single shooter shot multiple people at his office, "some of whom are dead," he wrote. Davis said that the gunman shot through the glass door to the office and opened fire on multiple employees. As he hid under his desk, he wrote, he could hear the gunman reload his weapon.

In a subsequent interview with The Baltimore Sun, Davis wrote that it "was like a war zone" inside the newspaper's offices.

“I’m a police reporter. I write about this stuff — not necessarily to this extent, but shootings and death — all the time,” he told the Sun. “But as much as I’m going to try to articulate how traumatizing it is to be hiding under your desk, you don’t know until you’re there and you feel helpless.”

Davis said that he and others in the office were still hiding under their desks when the shooting stopped.

“I don’t know why. I don’t know why he stopped,” he said.

Photo: Emergency personnel congregate outside the Capital-Gazette newspaper building on June 28, 2018, in Annapolis, Maryland. Five people were killed when a gunman opened fire in the newsroom. Others were injured. One person is in custody. Photo by Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images News/Getty Images