Who is Doug Mills? All about photographer who captured picture of bullet flying past Trump's head during alleged assassination attempt

Veteran photographer Doug Mills captured an image of the alleged assassination on former US president Donald Trump. The picture, which reportedly shows the bullet whizzing past the sky, seconds before it clipped Trump on his right ear, has since gone viral on social media. The alleged attempt on the former US President's life was made on July 13, 2024, while he was speaking at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

While Trump reportedly did not suffer any serious injuries, one person died and two others were injured at the scene. The FBI identified the shooter as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, and Secret Service snipers managed to kill him minutes after the shooting.

Doug Mills is a veteran photojournalist with The New York Times since 2002, before which he worked as a photographer for The Associated Press (AP) in Washington.

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Doug Mills has covered every US President since Ronald Reagan

Doug Mills, born in 1960 in North Carolina, graduated from Northern Virginia Community College in Virginia. Mills worked at the United Press International's Washington bureau for 4 years before he joined The Associated Press (AP), where he worked as the chief photographer for 15 years.

In 1993, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Bill Clinton and Al Gore electoral campaigns while at AP. He earned a second Pulitzer Prize for covering the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal.

In 2002, he joined the Washington bureau of The New York Times. The photojournalist has covered every president since Ronald Reagan in 1983 and has been dubbed the Best Photographer by the White House Correspondents Association in 2020 and 2023.

He also won the Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage by Visual Journalists in those same years. In addition to his presidential coverage, Doug Mills has a keen interest in sports. He has covered over 16 Olympics, the Super Bowls, and several other renowned sporting events.

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Doug Mills on the shooting at the Butler rally

The New York Times journalist Megan DiTrolio sat down with Doug Mills on July 14, 2024. Mills had made the appearance to share his side of the story after the alleged assassination attempt at the campaign rally in Butler on July 13. The photojournalist likened the sound of the gunfire to a "motorcycle backfiring." He stated:

"I knew something was wrong when I saw him drop behind the podium. I’m not around guns a lot, so I don’t know what they sound like. It sounded more to me like a motorcycle backfiring, or a piece of farm equipment."

He further added:

"When I heard the noise, I didn’t immediately think somebody was shooting. When he went down and I saw the agents rushing the stage, I thought, Oh my God, he’s been shot."

He added that people were running around him yelling about an "active shooter" when he saw Trump get back on his feet at the podium and pump his fist. The former president looked "completely pissed off" before his face drained of any color and blood ran down the side of his face.

Doug Mills added that he was determined to photograph the incident, saying his "photojournalism DNA" kicked in. After Donald Trump was safely ushered back to his car, Doug Mills and other people were escorted into a tent to get away from the crime scene.

From there, he called one of the editors at The New York Times and transmitted the photograph to them. When asked if he immediately understood the gravity of the photograph he had captured, Mills added:

"No, I really wasn’t. I didn’t think of it in the big picture. The gravity of it had not sunk in. But by probably 8 or 9 last night, I thought, Wow, there’s an image or images out there that have recorded history. I’m grateful that I was there to capture it, and incredibly grateful that I wasn’t injured and none of my colleagues were injured."

According to The New York Times, Doug Mills used a Sony digital camera to take the-now viral picture. The camera could capture images at up to 30 frames per second.