Maybe we’ll finally learn our lesson
Jun 29, 2018, 5:51 AM | Updated: 6:59 am
Jarrod Ramos, the man accused of shooting up the newsroom of The Capital Gazette, was the subject of a story in that newspaper seven years ago.
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It was a cautionary tale about the dangers of Facebook. The story described how Ramos contacted a woman he went to school with and started a correspondence that quickly turned creepy.
Ramos called her a bi-polar drunkard. He emailed her employer to try to get her fired. He told her to kill herself.
So she filed charges and Ramos finally pleaded guilty to criminal harassment. He was sentenced to 18 months probation, told to continue his therapy and to never contact the victim again.
He then sued the Gazette for defamation. But the judge in the case found that everything in the news article was accurate.
To quote the judge’s ruling:
“The appellant was charged with a criminal act. The appellant perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant pleaded 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.”
But maybe this will at least help us learn our lesson, which is that people with a court record like that need to be on a list that prevents them from ever claiming membership in the well-regulated militia.
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