The Pulitzer Prize winning photographer for the New York Times,
Doug Mills, is where he often is when news is
happening in the front row.
He captured the chilling moment as a bullet appeared to
whiz past the former
president's ear. And Doug Mills is here with me now.
And one, I'm so grateful that you're safe.
And it's just, you know,
it's being in that press corps.
And to see the people we know.
I saw your white hat running in front of the
stage as all this is happening.
I mean, you were feet away from Donald Trump.
When did you realize what was going on,
Caitlin?
I guess I was, you know,
trying to put him between the flag and the podium
and photographing there.
And then when he kind of gestured to his right
and I heard the pops,
you know, I I don't have a gun,
so I don't know what an AR15 sounds like.
Never heard one. At first,
I thought it was like a motorcycle or some sort
of machinery.
And
then when I saw him grab his ear and he
kind of winced and then immediately went down,
I thought, oh, my God,
he's been shot. I mean,
I get chills saying it now.
And it was, there was so much adrenaline going on
then.
And once he went down,
my first reaction was to run around to the side
and try and get a picture of him down on
the ground.
And by that time I got there,
he was completely covered by the Secret Service agents that
are on his detail.
And, you know, all the staff is yelling.
The Secret Service is yelling
at me, yelling at all the other photographers.
There were four of us in the in the buffer
zone,
as you know, and it was pretty chaotic and they
just kept yelling get down,
active shooter, get down, get down,
get down. And I probably didn't do the safest thing
because I reacted and went straight to the stage and
started shooting just,
you know, shoot taking pictures just like a lot of
the other photographers.
And could you hear what was what was happening there?
I that audio I had not heard before.
It means it's gives me chills.
But I did not hear any.
All we heard was the screaming,
the woman crying. We heard I,
I did hear it the right at the beginning when
I got around the corner,
I thought I heard him yelling Sir,
down, down, down, down. And then it was just nothing
but get down,
get down, active shooter, get down,
get down. And then at one point I started thinking
about,
OK, if is he alive?
You know, I was just like,
what's going on? They're completely covering him.
And then I thought, OK,
I've got to get over to the side because I
think they're going to take him off the stairs.
You and I know how that setup looks.
And as many times as we've covered the president,
they have to give an exit for him.
There has to be a egress.
So
well, and you, you, you then you take this photo.
I mean, this is the photo
where in that red circle,
that's what appears to be the bullet that ultimately appears
to his ear.
Could Did you know that you had a photo?
I had no idea. I mean,
when I started looking through my Sony camera to try
and transmit him back to the office,
the first things I was thinking of as I got
to get the pictures of him coming off stage showing
his blood a year and him
that defiant fist pump that he gave.
So I, those were the first pictures I sent.
And we, the pool was directed back off the stage.
And when the president left in the,
in the SUV to go to the hospital,
they told us, hey, you guys have all got to
move out of here.
This is an active crime scene.
You've got to move. We got to find a place
for you.
So they literally took us to the
president's hold, the tent where he normally comes.
You know, he's in there before,
before he comes on stage.
Staff still in there. Staff was in there.
There were a lot of tears in that,
in that, you know, tent.
It was hard to see.
A lot of members of staff were were hugging each
other.
A lot of tears. Couple of the press people were
pretty upset about it.