Day: July 14, 2024

An annotated photo showing what appears to be a projectile passing by Donald J. Trump during a rally in Butler, Pa., on Saturday.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

In documenting the Pennsylvania campaign rally on Saturday afternoon that turned into an attempt on a former president’s life, Doug Mills, a veteran New York Times photographer, appeared to capture the image of a bullet streaking past former President Donald J. Trump’s head.

That is the assessment of Michael Harrigan, a retired F.B.I. special agent who spent 22 years in the bureau.

“It absolutely could be showing the displacement of air due to a projectile,” Mr. Harrigan said in an interview on Saturday night after reviewing the high-resolution images that Mr. Mills filed from the rally. “The angle seems a bit low to have passed through his ear, but not impossible if the gunman fired multiple rounds.”

Simple ballistic math showed that capturing a bullet as Mr. Mills likely did in a photo was possible, Mr. Harrigan said.

Mr. Mills was using a Sony digital camera capable of capturing images at up to 30 frames per second. He took these photos with a shutter speed of 1/8,000th of a second — extremely fast by industry standards.

The other factor is the speed of the bullet from the firearm. On Saturday law enforcement authorities recovered an AR-15-type semiautomatic rifle at the scene from a deceased white man they believe was the gunman.

“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,’’ Mr. Harrigan said. “And with a 1/8,000th of a second shutter speed, this would allow the bullet to travel approximately four-tenths of a foot while the shutter is open.”

“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,” he said.

In Mr. Harrigan’s last assignment, he led the bureau’s firearms training unit and currently works as a consultant in the firearms industry.

“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 said.

My Opinion and Questions 

How did the bullet “graze” Trump’s ear, and was it really a bullet?

The presumed gunman Thomas Matthes Crooks was located on the roof to the right side of Trump, and the bullet shot from this direction, which “grazed” the upper tip of his right ear, would inevitably hit the right side of his skull, and this did not happen. It looks like, from Trump’s reaction, that his ear was possibly hit from behind him, and it was something smaller than a regular bullet. Hypothetically and theoretically, the attack with mini-drone, the size of the insect, is possible, as one of the explanations. 

I would also be interested in the identities of people standing on the podium right behind Trump. 

Trump touched the injured ear with his right hand, and when the palm of his hand showed on video, there was no blood on it, immediately after the injury. 

All in all, it is nothing short of miracle that this presumed bullet “grazed” his ear but did not cause any  other damage. 

The medical forensic expertise of the Trump’s wound after the assassination attempt is needed, with the specific question, if it is consistent with bullet injury. 

However, one of the attendees was killed, and two were seriously injured. The locations of these persons and the nature of their injuries should be analyzed forensically vizavi the location of the presumed gunman Crooks, in their ballistic aspects. Were the shots fired by one or more than one person? 

These questions and doubts are supplemented by the set of very clear and sardonic Telling Names: “Trump was shot at Butler Farm Show, Pa; by Crooks”. 

My opinion is that there are observable similarities between this Trump incident and the cases of mass shootings, with regard to the questions about the numbers of the actual shooters and their true identities. It is possible that the authors of these “shows”are the same: Putin and his circle, and that they took some care to avoid the risk to Trump’s life while maximizing its impact on the inciting the Civil War and bringing other similar calamities upon America. 

The additional, facetious side benefit for them, the Putin’s circle,  would be to confuse and to fool the FBI and the public by introducing the explanations which have very questionable relations with the common sense. 

Michael Novakhov | 7.14.24 

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Links

The ballistic aspects of the Trump assassination attempt of 7.13.24 – GS 

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Reasonable observation https://t.co/CTqeS7L6lO
The distance between President #Trump and the shooter on a rooftop was 137 meters.
It is literally impossible that both the SS and the #FBI did not know exactly where the shooter was, as demonstrated by the videos shared on social… https://t.co/Bc8oSqSqxf pic.twitter.com/glyLoJVQ0W

— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) July 14, 2024

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This image shows the location of the shooting site, about 400 feet from the stage, at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024.GOOGLE EARTH/CBS NEWS