Law enforcement officials used facial recognition software to identify the suspect in Thursday’s shooting at an newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, after the suspect’s fingerprints were found to be damaged or altered beyond use.
CNN reported that the suspect, a 39-year-old male who has yet to be identified publicly by police, had damaged or altered his fingertips in a way to prevent identification through traditional means, and had refused to give his name during interrogations.
A CNN source said that facial recognition software had been used to identify the suspect instead.
Thursday’s shooting left at least five dead and others wounded, according to police, after a single gunman attacked the newsroom of the Capital Gazette, which publishes The Capital and The Maryland Gazette, among other local publications.
The Gazette is one of the oldest newspapers in the country and has been in operation in some form since 1727. Police said at a press conference Thursday afternoon that they had not yet determined a motive for the attack.
At a second news conference later in the evening, Acting Anne Arundel County police chief William Krampf refused to confirm CNN’s reporting, telling reporters that he had “no information about facial recognition” to offer after a reporter asked about reports the suspect had intentionally damaged his fingerprints.
{mosads}
“The investigation has just started. So as [Frashure] has said, we’re going to be quite a while determining what occurred, how it occurred, and why it occurred,” Krampf told reporters.
President Trump tweeted that he was briefed on the shooting prior to departing Wisconsin on Thursday, and wrote that his “thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.”
-Updated 8:25 p.m.