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The moment a bullet grazed the ear of former US president Donald Trump during an assassination attempt on him at a rally in US's Pennsylvania was captured by a New York Times photographer. The image clicked by Doug Mills, a veteran photographer who was standing just a few feet away from Trump, shows the bullet behind the 78-year-old leader's face after it clipped his right ear.
Mr Mills, who has been covering the US presidents since 1983, said he did not know he had captured the bullet in one of his photographs.
“It happened so fast but now I can see it all in slow-motion. I was taking pictures when the pops started happening. I just happened to have my finger on the shutter and I heard the pops and kept shooting. I didn't know what I had captured but when I got to my laptop I could see that bullet flying behind his head because it is definitely not in the frames right before it and it's not in afterwards. It's only that one frame. I was shooting in 1/1,800 of a second. It captured that streak behind him,” he said.
Photo by New York Times photographer Doug Mills shows bullet flying just behind Trump's head. pic.twitter.com/0ncIBC0i1v
— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) July 14, 2024
The photo he captured shows a long white streak behind Trump's head, showing the apparent path of a bullet used in the assassination attempt against the former president. “I never thought I'd ever see an assassination attempt on a president and be there to photograph it,” Mr Mills said.
According to Mills, he was at the right place at the right time and his long experience of covering presidents helped him capture the crucial moments after the attack
“I've covered the president for 40+ years and I've always known which way they come onstage and which way they go off. And the closest stairs were to my right so I ran over to that side and witnessed him being helped up to his feet, and my immediate reaction was “Oh my god! He is alive”, he said
The photographer also described the president's initial reaction after he realised that he survived an attempted assassination. “All of a sudden, he got near the edge of the stage and raised up his fist in defiance. And I could see the blood on his face and that defiance went away like in a split second. He became very serious. I thought he looked very pale,” Mr Mill said.
“Two very different moments happened, you know, in a matter of seconds. It is a moment unlike any in my lifetime, my history, my job of covering the White House since 1983. You never think about something like this ever happening because it is so frightening,” he added.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identified the assassin as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. The investigation agency also now released a photo of the young attacker.
Crooks was shot down by Secret Service snipers after he fired multiple shots at the former US president in the rally from a nearby rooftop. Witnesses claimed they tried to warn the security officials about a man moving from roof to roof nearby and laying on his stomach with a gun pointed at the rally.
