U2 honors victims of Maryland newspaper shooting

Irish rock band U2 dedicated a song at their Friday night concert in Newark, N.J., to the five people killed in the shooting at a newsroom in Maryland the previous day.

U2 frontman Bono told the crowd he was dedicating the band’s performance of the 1991 song “One” to journalists and reporters in response to the shooting at the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Md. 

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“I wanna dedicate this next song to journalists, to reporters. To people who, at their best, give us the very foundation of our democracy,” Bono told the crowd, according to video posted on Facebook by a fan in attendance.

“They give us the facts, of which to form our opinions. They give us truths, to guide our understanding, and we need them. We need them!” he added.

“We need them to help us understand what’s goin’ on, and we need them to help us understand each other. I think that’s also true. We need writers, so we can focus on what unites us, rather than what divides us. … So, for the Capital Gazette … There is no them, there is only us. This is ‘One.’ ”

Five people were killed Thursday afternoon at the Capital Gazette when a gunman, who police say was 38-year-old Jarrod Ramos, attacked the office with a pump-action shotgun.

Police said that Ramos, who is charged with five counts of first-degree murder, had a long-running dispute with the newspaper over a column about a criminal harassment charge against him. He sued the paper for defamation in 2012, but the case was tossed out by a judge. 

President Trump addressed the shooting on Friday at the White House, condemning the attack and telling assembled guests that reporters “should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their job.”