A member of the Washington press corps, Doug Mills, captured one of the bullets that flew past Trump’s head during the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania last night.
Mills is a staff photographer for The New York Times and his photograph quickly began going viral with one person calling it “one of the wildest pictures in American history.”
A remarkable photo captured by my former White House Press Corps colleague Doug Mills.
Zoom in right above President Trump’s shoulder and you’ll see a bullet flying in the air to the right of President Trump’s head following an attempted assassination. pic.twitter.com/FqmLBCytoW
— Haraz N. Ghanbari (@HarazGhanbari) July 14, 2024
Retired FBI special agent Michael Harrigan who spent 22 years with the bureau tells The Times he believes the thin grey line on the photo is a bullet.
“It absolutely could be showing the displacement of air due to a projectile,” says Harrigan.
“The angle seems a bit low to have passed through his ear, but not impossible if the gunman fired multiple rounds.”
Mills took the photos at 1,8000 of a second. But even at that extremely fast shutter speed capturing the bullet was improbable.
“If the gunman was firing an AR-15-style rifle, the .223-caliber or 5.56-millimeter bullets they use travel at roughly 3,200 feet per second when they leave the weapon’s muzzle,’’ Harrigan evaluates.
“And with a 1/8000th of a second shutter speed, this would allow the bullet to travel approximately four-tenths of a foot while the shutter is open.”
A remarkable series of photos taken by @dougmillsnyt and posted on NYT, where you can see a bullet fly past Trump’s head, Trump touching his right ear, and then removing his hand with blood on it: https://t.co/BlVYoEASHN pic.twitter.com/MyptVvjHaX
— Meridith McGraw (@meridithmcgraw) July 14, 2024
Harrigan adds that capturing photos of bullets mid-flight is usually reserved for high-speed specialty cameras.
“Catching a bullet on a side trajectory as seen in that photo would be a one-in-a-million shot and nearly impossible to catch even if one knew the bullet was coming,” he adds.
‘I Hope I’m Not Shot Myself’
Meanwhile, Mills described the chaos from his perspective, saying that it was a “standard, typical” rally that he and about four other photographers were covering until gunshots started ringing out.
“At first I thought it was a car. The last thing I thought was it was a gun,” Mills pens for The Times.
“I kept taking pictures. He went down behind the lectern, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, something’s happened’.”
Mills says he’s never been part of something so horrific.
“I’ve always feared being in this situation. I always wondered what I’d do in this situation. I hope I get the right shot. I hope I’m not shot myself.”
Image credits: via Fox News.