One of the five people killed in last month's shooting at The Capital Gazette in Maryland charged at the gunman holding a trash can and a recycling bin as he fired throughout the newsroom.
Wendi Winters, 65, who was an editor and community reporter at the Annapolis newspaper, had completed active shooter training at her church weeks before the June 28 attack, her surviving co-workers said in a Saturday report.
Janel Cooley, among the six employees who survived the attack, said Winters shouted something like, "No! You stop that!" or "You get out of here!" as she charged at the shooter, Jarrod Ramos.
"She may have distracted him enough that he forgot about me because I definitely stood up and was looking at the door," Cooley said.
"I’m sure he wasn’t expecting … anyone to charge him."
Ramos, 38, of Laurel, Md., who held a longtime grudge against the Gazette, was charged with killing Winters and four others: editor Rob Hiaasen, editorial page editor Gerald Fischman, editor and sports writer John McNamara and sales assistant Rebecca Smith.
He faces five counts of first-degree murder in what Anne Arundel County Deputy Police Chief William Krampf described as a "targeted" attack against the newspaper.
Police Lt. Ryan Frashure declined to comment on Winters' actions for Saturday's report, citing the continuing investigation.
The day of the shooting, Gazette photographer Paul Gillespie said he heard Winters yell a defiant "No!" from where he was hiding nearby.
Reporters Phil Davis and Rachael Pacella said they did not see Winters accost Ramos from where they were hiding, but they saw her body in the newsroom walkway, not where she normally sits.
"I think that Wendi doing what she did served as enough of a distraction that maybe he didn’t see us," Pacella said in the report. "I absolutely think that Wendi Winters saved my life."
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