President Donald Trump reversed course on Tuesday, ordering flags to half-mast in honor of the five people killed during a shooting at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland.
The news was first reported by the Associated Press Tuesday morning.
This will apply to all flags on public grounds across the country.
President Trump orders the U.S. flag be flown at half-staff on federal property in honor of five newspaper journalists slain in Maryland's capital. https://t.co/PmQRNucyw0
— The Associated Press (@AP) July 3, 2018
On Monday, the White House appeared to decline a request from Annapolis mayor Gavin Buckley to lower the flags in honor of the slain reporters from the shooting last week.
“The Mayor is extremely disappointed by the denial from the White House of his request to fly the United States flag at half-staff in honor of the slain journalists from The Capital Gazette,” a representative from the mayor’s office confirmed to TheWrap. “He sees these murders as an attack on the freedom of the Press as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
A rep for the White House did not immediately respond to request for comment from TheWrap.
On Thursday, a gunman walked into the Annapolis paper, opened fire and killed five people. The shooter, Jarrod Ramos, had a long-standing grudge against the Capital Gazette, which had written about harassment charges that he had faced in 2011. A 2012 defamation suit Ramos brought against the paper was dismissed.
President Trump expressed his condolences in the immediate aftermath.
“Journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their job,” he said hours after the shooting. “My government will not rest until we have done everything in our power to reduce violent crime and to protect innocent life.”