Now able to speak freely on the case, Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney Anne Colt Leitess on Monday formally honored a few of the first responders and good Samaritans who helped victims of the Capital Gazette shooting that claimed five lives and shocked Annapolis nearly four years ago.
During the first Crime Victims’ Rights Week Awards ceremony since the conclusion of the criminal case stemming from the mass shooting in Annapolis, Leitess issued awards to seven people who she said were the “tip of the iceberg” of those who came to aide at the Capital Gazette newsroom June 28, 2018, and in the courtroom during the years that followed.
“They helped the injured, they preserved evidence, they gathered witnesses who saw firsthand what happened, they testified in support of the prosecution in the biggest criminal case that our county has ever seen,” Leitess said at the ceremony in Acton’s Cove Waterfront Park, where a memorial garden honors Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendi Winters, the five Capital Gazette employees who were killed that day.
Among those honored were Keith Cyphers, an insurance salesman who called 911 when he heard the first shotgun blast while he was working at 888 Bestgate that day, and later testified what he had seen.
“He saw, heard and experienced the horrors” of the shooting, Leitess said, noting that Cyphers’ description of the gunman’s movements “were so incredible, that they helped refute and debunk” his attorneys’ claims the shooter was insane during the attack, leading a jury to find him criminally responsible and ultimately sentenced to spend his life in prison.
Also honored were Anne Arundel County Police Cpl. Danelo Sobers, Cpl. Ryan McGeeney and Detective Greg Lesane, who were the first police to arrive on the scene, and Anne Arundel County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Brian Williams and now-retired Cpl. Barry Byers, who joined them shortly after. Navigating smoky hallways during the active shooter case, the crew escorted injured victims to paramedics and survivors out of the building and stood guard before the gunman was found.
“We know that their response mattered, because the assailant would later tell authorities that he had heard them, and stopped what he was doing because of them,” Leitess said.
Anne Arundel County Detective Jason DePietro, the lead investigator of the case, was given an award for his meticulous collection of evidence that convinced the jury that the suspect was not insane during the attack.
The ceremony, in its 21st iteration, also honored Matt Riley and Meredith Bass, a firefighter and a nurse who saved lives during a February 2020 crash on Aris T. Allen Boulevard.
“When Mr. Riley and Ms. Bass saw what occurred, they stopped their vehicles, they sprung into action,” Assistant State’s Attorney Carolynn Grammas said. They assessed motorists Andrew Oles and his wife, Amanda Ward, who were injured by a drunken driver who had crossed the median and hit their vehicle.
“I should be dead,” Ward, a doctor, said in her victim impact statement, which Grammas read aloud at the ceremony. “There were so many opportunities for this to end in death. But the community saved my life.”
Riley and Bass also went to the other vehicle, where they helped rescue the drunken driver’s 2-year-old daughter.
This year’s Warren B. Duckett Jr. Memorial Commitment to Justice Award went to Det. Kala Jennings, the Anne Arundel County Police Department’s domestic violence head for the Eastern District, who “consistently goes beyond what is expected of her,” often following up with victims after reading reports she finds concerning, connecting victims with needed services, and keeping an “open line of communication” with victim-witness advocates, according to Joan Stammnitz, the state’s attorney’s office’s victim-witness service director.
