The photographer who took a “one in a million” picture of a bullet whizzing by Donald Trump’s head was using a camera that shoots 30 frames per second when gunfire broke out at the ex-president’s Pennsylvania rally.
New York Times photojournalist Doug Mills said Monday he didn’t realize he captured the historic photo during the attempted assassination of Trump until after an editor spotted the apparent path of a bullet that was fired by sniper Matthew Thomas Crooks from a nearby roof Saturday evening.
Trump was grazed in the right ear and three others were also hit by gunfire, including a 50-year-old volunteer firefighter who was killed.
Crooks was shot dead by law enforcement.
“When I saw him kind of grimace and look to his right and then grab his ear, and looked at it, I thought, and then he went down,” Mills recalled for CBS News. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, he’s been shot.’”
Even as Trump was rushed off stage by Secret Service agents, Mills, a Pulitzer Prize winner, kept taking photos.
“So when it happened, even though the former president’s staff were yelling at me to get down, get down, and the Secret Service were yelling at us to get down, I probably didn’t do the safest thing, but I ran around the side of the stage to try and capture those moments,” he told CBS News.
Mills initially sent photos back to an editor of the immediate aftermath that included Trump with a bloodied ear as he fist pumped the crowd. He then remembered he had photos of when Trump was talking before the commotion.
“I got a text and a call from her saying, ‘You won’t believe this. We think we have a picture. You have a picture of the bullet behind his head,’” he said. “And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’”
The streak is barely visible unless the photo is blown up.
An FBI forensic expert confirmed the image shows the bullet cutting through the air, CBS News reported. It’s unclear if that’s the bullet that pierced Trump’s ear.
A retired FBI special agent, Michael Harrigan, told the Times it is possible for Mills to have captured a photo of the bullet, however unlikely.
Mills was using a camera that can take images at up to 30 frames per second. He reportedly took the photos of the bullet flying by with a shutter speed of 1/8,000 of a second, which is incredibly quick.
“Most cameras used to capture images of bullets in flight are using extremely high speed specialty cameras not normally utilized for regular photography, so 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,” Harrigan told the Times.
“Given the circumstances, if that’s not showing the bullet’s path through the air, I don’t know what else it would be,” he added.