Capital Gazette 'Opinion' page left blank in memory of shooting victims

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - On Friday, the community continued to mourn the loss suffered at the Capitol Gazette. Despite the tragedy, the staff at the Capital Gazette has published a Friday edition.

The 'Opinion' page of the paper was left blank on Friday with the exception of a few words and the names of the victims. It read:

"Today, we are speechless. This page is internationally left black today to commemorate the victims of Thursday's shootings at our office: Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith, Wendi Winters. Tomorrow this page will return to its steady purpose of offering our readers informed opinion about the world around them, that they might be better citizens."

Phil Davis, a courts and crime reporter for the paper, tweeted that the gunman shot out the glass door to the office and fired into the newsroom, sending people scrambling under desks.

"There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you're under your desk and then hear the gunman reload," he wrote in a tweet. In a later interview appearing on the paper's online site, Davis likened the newspaper office to a "war zone."

"I'm a police reporter. I write about this stuff -- not necessarily to this extent, but shootings and death -- all the time," he said. "But 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."

The Associated Press contributed to this article