Only hours after witnessing the deadly shooting in their newsroom, Capital Gazette staff writers Phil Davis and Selene San Felice spoke with CNN’s Anderson Cooper by phone this Thursday, at one point dismissing President Trump’s offer of “thoughts and prayers” as a condolence.
“I’ll tell you when it first started to happen, I mean, you just immediately go into panic mode,” Davis said, adding that he began wondering, “Are we all going to die?” and “Is he not going to leave until everyone in here is dead?”
“I have to say that what happened here was very calculated,” San Felice added, saying that she thinks the shooter may have been targeting specific editors.
“I have heard that President Trump sent his prayers,” she continued. “I’m not trying to make this political, all right? But we need more than prayers. I appreciate the prayers. I was praying the entire time I was under that desk. I want your prayers, but I want something else.”
Felice was referring to a tweet posted by President Trump this Thursday in the wake of the shooting, saying that his “thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.”
Prior to departing Wisconsin, I was briefed on the shooting at Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. Thank you to all of the First Responders who are currently on the scene.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2018
“I remember being so upset hearing about the [Pulse shooting] victims who were texting their families,” she said. “And there I was, sitting under a desk texting my parents and telling them that I loved them.”
“I don’t know what I want right now, but I’m gonna need more than a couple of days of news coverage and some thoughts and prayers, because our whole lives have been shattered,” she added. “So thanks for your prayers, but I couldn’t give a f*ck about them if there’s nothing else.”
Davis echoed her sentiment.
“[To] Selene’s point about prayers, you’re right, I was praying, when he was reloading that shotgun that there weren’t going to be more bodies,” he said. “If we’re at a position in our society where all we can offer each other is prayers, then where are we? Where are we as a society, where people die, and that’s the end of that story?”
The shooter has been identified as 38-year old Jarrod W. Ramos, who, according to reports, unsuccessfully sued the paper for defamation after a former reporter wrote an article about his guilty plea to a harassment charge in 2011.
Watch the CNN segment below:
Featured image via screen grab/YouTube
