'A war zone'
Phil Davis, a Capital Gazette crime reporter, said he was hiding under his desk along with other newspaper employees when the shooter stopped firing, the Capital Gazette reported on its website.
The newsroom looked "like a war zone," he told the Baltimore Sun, adding, "I don't know why he stopped."
"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.
Police officers in the Maryland capital of Annapolis responded within a minute to a 911 call about a shooting in progress and apprehended the suspect who was hiding under a desk, authorities said.
Police are treating the shooting as a local incident, with no links to terrorism, a law enforcement source told Reuters. Krampf did not say why the gunman may have targeted the newspaper or its employees.
When police found the suspect, his weapon was on the ground and "not in his immediate proximity," Steve Schuh, Anne Arundel county executive, told cable news station CNN.
Police said they recovered what they thought might have been an explosive device but Krampf later said the suspect had smoke grenades. Investigators were in the process of securing his Maryland residence and obtaining search warrants, he said.
The suspect appeared to have damaged his fingertips to try to avoid detection and was refusing to cooperate with law enforcement, Baltimore TV station WJZ and other local media reported. Krampf did not comment on those reports.
Capital Gazette runs multiple newspapers out of its Annapolis office and the group includes one of the oldest newspapers in the US, The Gazette, which traces its origins back to 1727.
The company, part of the Tronc Inc media group, publishes newspapers in and around Annapolis, home of the US Naval Academy. The papers have thrived by focusing on local news in the shadows of two much larger competitors, the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun.
"We're putting out a paper"
Law enforcement in Baltimore and New York City deployed extra officers to the offices of the New York Times and other major media outlets as a precaution, authorities said.
New York Police officers are seen deployed outside the New York Times building following a fatal shooting at a Maryland newspaper, in New York City, US, June 28, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermid
The shooting drew the attention of media groups, including Reporters Without Borders, which said it was deeply disturbed by the events in Annapolis.
White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said that US President Donald Trump had been briefed on the shooting.
"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," Trump said in a tweet.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said on Twitter, "A violent attack on innocent journalists doing their job is an attack on every American."
Jimmy DeButts, an editor at the Capital Gazette, tweeted that he was devastated, heartbroken and numb.
"I'm in no position to speak, just know @capgaznews reporters & editors give all they have every day. There are no 40 hour weeks, no big paydays - just a passion for telling stories from our community," he wrote.
One of the group's flagship papers, The Capital, plans to publish a June 29 edition, several reporters with the group said. "I can tell you this: We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow," reporter Chase Cook wrote on Twitter a few hours after the shooting.
