We are getting a lesson into why the testimony of Emergency Room Doctors should not be treated as Holy Writ.
The object that struck Trump was not a bullet. It was a fragment of debris that was propelled by the bullet. How can we tell?
There is a still photograph showing the object that struck Trump's ear. It is a streak about 3 feet long. The speed of this object is distance / time, 3 feet divided by the shutter speed.
If the shutter speed was 1/1000 of a second, then the speed was 3 / (1/1000) or 3000 feet per second. This would be consistent with a rifle bullet.
If the shutter speed was 1/100 of a second, then the speed was 3 / (1/100) or 300 feet per second. This would be consistent with the rifle bullet.
A shutter speed of 1/1000 of a second would not be used, even for an outside shot. The image produced would be too dim. There probably is no a setting on 1/1000 of a second on that camera.
A shutter speed of something like 1/100 of a second is probably about right for an outside shot. And if this was an inside shot the shutter speed would have been set even slower, like 1/50 of a second, to prevent the image from being too dim. So this is a picture of a fragment flying through the air and not of a high speed bullet.
Other evidence? Trump refuses to release the medical information which would prove it one way or another. But just wants us to take his word for it, which is not going to happen.
Also, four other officers standing near by to Trump were, like Trump, slightly wounded by flying debris.
Trump is claiming he was struck by a bullet to make himself seem more heroic, a man spared by a miracle of God.
Two arguments why this streak seen in the photograph could not be the object that struck Trump:
1. The path is too level. The shooter was firing from an elevated position. Yes, but only 20 feet higher than Trump. From 450 feet away the angle would be arcsin ( 20 / 450 ) or 2 degrees, which is pretty damm level. Conclusion: FALSE ARGUMENT.
2. The path does not line up with the top of Trump's ear. The path is two inches too low. This does not take into account that the photograph was well below Trump and aiming upwards. WIth the head of Trump being 6 inches wide, the angle would be arcsin ( 2 / 6 ). This indicates an upward angle of 18 degrees, which results in a shot where the path seems to be 2 inches too low, but isn't. Conclusion: FALSE ARGUMENT.
The Butler Pennsylvania doctors should be a lot more accurate than the Dallas doctors. Instead of intensely trying to keep the heart beating and lungs breathing, the Butler doctors were under no such pressure. The just need to stop the bleeding of the slightly wounded Trump. And they likely spent more than ten minutes with him. And yet they were not.
A shutter speed of 1/1000 of a second would not be used, even for an outside shot. The image produced would be too dim. There probably is no a setting on 1/1000 of a second on that camera
Even my old inexpensive Nikon D40 has a shutter speed capability of 1/4000 of a second. If you think 1/1000 of a second is not reasonable for a photo in bright daylight looking up toward the sky, then you might not know as much about photography as you apparently think you do. Today’s cameras record digital photos that include information about the camera settings. It should be feasible to find out the exact camera settings by referring to the actual photo as recorded by the camera. Have you researched this to see if the photographer has provided this type of information about the photo? If not, you might want to consider doing so.
Edit: 1/1000 of a second shutter speed is a very commonly recommended setting for sports photography. It “freezes” the action. There is no reason to believe that the photographer wasn’t using that setting for the Trump rally.
It is true. I know more about math than photography. I am going by my memories of cameras in the 1970s. And I was not too much into cameras even then. But as I recall with those cameras, you could go with a short shutter speed, but the image might be too dim. But you can counter that by using a wider aperture, where you would have a bright image with a short shutter speed, but the wide aperture gives a less sharp image. Perhaps with digital cameras you can have the best of all worlds.
By the way, one can look at the photograph by googling "trump bullet streak", go to the images tab and see a photograph with a red oval drawn around the streak.
Well, the answer to the mystery is to be found by consulting the professional photographer who took the picture. "What was the shutter speed of the photograph that he took?". I bet a professional photographer could give us the answer even a couple of weeks later, or a year later. He would know what shutter speed he was using that day, at least approximately, which would answer the question. If he was using a shutter speed of around 1 / 1000 th of a second, then I guess it would have to be a bullet. The press should get onto looking into this. They only have to question one of their own.
But I don't think so for the following reasons
1. Trump being reluctant to release the medical records of that day, which would prove at a stroke, that he was "heroically" struck by a bullet.
2. I don't know much about camera. But I read a post from someone who does, I believe. He claimed that a super high shutter speed was not used, because the image of Trump's head is blurred. This can be seen in the "Make America Great Again" slogan on Trump's hat (well, at least the left part of this slogan) being blurred, caused by Trump moving his head when the shot was fired.
3. A fantastic coincidence that the shutter was snapped just when it was, to within a millisecond of when the bullet struck the ear. If it was a fragment moving a tenth of the speed of a bullet, it would still be a coincidence, but not so fantastic.
Yes, the digital photo world is a lot different than film. Film speed is relevant in this discussion. Digital cameras simulate film speed and have a lot more capabilities. The Nikon D40 camera has film speed up to iso 1600 (that can be “extended” to iso 3200. The higher “film speeds” allow higher shutter speeds without much in the way of other compromises like dim photos or wider aperatures.
Can anyone come up with an example of an outdoor picture that shows the streak of a rifle bullet?
(https://i.vgy.me/PVAnEt.jpg)
https://www.peterrussellphotography.com/nk1/nk12.html (https://www.peterrussellphotography.com/nk1/nk12.html)
Good enough.
However, I should point out that the head of the shooter looks like a totally sharp image. His head is not blurred at all. This, in addition to the bullet appearing, indicates a very high shutter speed.
In contrast, Trump's head is blurred, while the sign on the podium is sharp and clear. which implies a slower shutter speed. It doesn't matter if some cameras, or even his camera, was capable of a very high shutter speed. All that matters is what was the shutter speed setting when the picture was taken. And, with Trump's slightly blurred head, it appears it was not set at a high speed.
(https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/07/13/us/politics/13TRUMP-SHOOTING-TRIPTYCH/13TRUMP-SHOOTING-TRIPTYCH-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp)
A composite image showing what appears to be a bullet passing by Donald J. Trump during a rally in Butler, Pa., on Saturday. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
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.
(from NYT article: Photo Appears to Capture Path of Bullet Used in Assassination Attempt, July 14, 2024)
The Mills Streak photo shows a brief moment after the second shot. Going by my memory of the NYT audio/video analysis, Trump's right hand flinches up about 1/5 sec after the first shot and is almost to chest level by the second shot. There's about one sec between the shots. So the photo is consistent with the second bullet (the streak) missing the head.
I assume the photographer would just hold the shutter button down and get a sequence of images until he released the shutter. I don't think Mills could have been motivated by hearing the shots to make his automatic sequence. It was coincidental. The first pop sound is not that loud; few react in the crowd.
Maybe Mills was trying to get a shot with the flag behind Trump. I wonder if the Streak photo was the first in the sequence.
(https://images2.imgbox.com/d2/da/2ZDku3EV_o.gif)
I now have the animation. The right hand flinches just before the second shot; not just after the first shot as I tried to recall earlier. A few in the crowd begin to duck shortly after the second shot.
First Bullet
Right Hand Begins to Rise
Second Bullet
Third Bullet
I would say the bullet reports arrived at the camera's location about the same time Trump would have heard it; the camera and Trump are roughly a similar distance from the muzzle. The span between each shot differs; since the shooter was using a semi-automatic, he had to manually fire each shot. So between each shot, he was experiencing recoil, meaning his trajectory roamed a bit. I don't think he had a gun rest.
The gunman fired off another five rounds after the initial three-shot sequence. Going by the Times' gunman view, Corey Comperatore seems a bit away from the Trump line-of-attack.
(https://assets2.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2024/07/25/68cd78e3-53a2-4f89-8613-48e2f577ab73/thumbnail/1240x700/a06d555da4fb614a97835b0562249043/mapoftrumprallyinjuries.jpg?v=5501038cbc281520ff9fdc308faab7dc)
_____
(https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Trump3D-daed.gif)
The overhead animation was made just a few days after the shooting. I suspect they didn't have a model of the overall area, didn't know exactly where the shooter was, didn't see where the first three bullets struck. Maybe they synced it to an audio; maybe they didn't.
For an animation done fast (maybe with AI), it was pretty good. The bullet would have struck Trump's skull if he hadn't moved. That's the point they were trying to make. To do all eight trajectories right and with precision, it will take the FBI months. There's the metal fragments to account for; maybe some bullets disintegrated. They might have to do ballistics tests. In a lessor case, they would just account for the Comperatore and wounding shots and leave it at that.
"I was taking pictures and that's when the pops started happening.
And I just happened to have my finger on the shutter. And I heard
the pops and just kept shooting."
-- Doug Mills, captured bullet streak
A small crane held up speakers for the event. Its hydraulic line was severed.
Start of Animation(https://images2.imgbox.com/25/ed/lsG4mqN9_o.gif)
(https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F961f8207-3fa1-4835-b94f-650b85313f70_1844x1018.png)
"The top arrow points to his body. Just below it is his rifle lying a few feet
from him. The arrow to the right points to his backpack. The far right
arrow points to a ladder. Note the large flow of blood downslope of his
body in the following closeup."
Link to picture: May not be suitable for some (https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2374299e-e7a2-4e2d-8050-28e4cf81631e_2080x1024.png)
(https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/07/13/us/politics/13TRUMP-SHOOTING-TRIPTYCH/13TRUMP-SHOOTING-TRIPTYCH-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp)
A composite image showing what appears to be a bullet passing by Donald J. Trump during a rally in Butler, Pa., on Saturday. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
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.l
(from NYT article: Photo Appears to Capture Path of Bullet Used in Assassination Attempt, July 14, 2024)
Yes. The photographer indicated that the shutter speed was 1/8,000 of a second. That should be considered definitive. Except for one thing. The length of the bullet path is about one foot. This would indicate a bullet speed of, distance / time.
1 foot / (1/8,000) of a second = 8,000 feet per second.
That is a problem. The muzzle velocity of the AR-15 is 3,300 feet per second. There is no way the shutter speed could be 1/8,000 of a second.
By the way, this photographs is cropped, making it possible the streak was longer than one foot, extending beyond the right edge. But non cropped photographs show the streak is only about one foot long, not much longer.
Correction: In my earlier posts I spoke of a three foot long streak. I was looking at youtube video where I only got a short view. It is really more like a one foot long streak.
If there is a conflict between what the photographer says and what the photograph says, I am going to believe the photograph. There is no way the shutter speed was 1/8,000 of a second. Unless the object was not a bullet fragment nor a bullet but an alien drone moving at 8,000 feet per second.
Perhaps the photographer was mistaken. Maybe the shutter speed was more like 1/4000 of a second. That just might work. But there is another problem.
The image of the sign on the podium of crystal sharpe. But of Trump's hat, the lettering looks a little blurry, obviously caused by Trump moving his head a little, while the podium was still. With the letter "A" on the hat, I cannot clearly see a red triangle inside the white "A". In contrast, I can easily see a blue triangle inside the white "A" on the podium sign, even though the letters are similar size. That hat appears a little blurry.
I would think that at 1/4,000 of a second, the letters on Trump's hat would be quite sharp, not blurry, even if Trump was moving his head slightly.
I think the photograph shows the shutter speed setting was set a good deal slower than 1/4,000 of a second, indicated by the blurring of Trump's hat. If that is true, the object could not be a bullet moving at 3,300 feet per second, and not a pristine bullet.
Question:
Does anyone have an example of a picture, taken with a shutter speed of 1/4,000 of a second, which still shows some blurring of the person, because they were moving a little. That even 1/4,000 of a second is not fast enough to prevent some blurring even of a person who is standing pretty still.
We are getting a lesson into why the testimony of Emergency Room Doctors should not be treated as Holy Writ.
The object that struck Trump was not a bullet. It was a fragment of debris that was propelled by the bullet. How can we tell?
Your hatred of Trump is reaching a tin foil stage. This is completely unhinged stuff. Imagine hating someone to such an extent as to deny what can be seen with your own eyes. A kid was allowed through gross incompetence of the Biden administration to fire eight shots. Trump was struck by a bullet according even to the FBI.
AP:
Nearly two weeks after Donald Trump’s near assassination, the FBI confirmed Friday that it was indeed a bullet that struck the former president’s ear, moving to clear up conflicting accounts about what caused the former president’s injuries after a gunman opened fire at a Pennsylvania rally.
Four Pittsburgh Police officers who were feet away from Trump suffered minor injuries from flying debris when bullets struck objects nearby.
You or the AP have cropped the Friday statement from the FBI. Here is the complete quote:
https://apnews.com/article/trump-bullet-shrapnel-ronny-jackson-christopher-wray-cb780b9d1a078f0be4191682e75101cf
“What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle,” the agency said in a statement.
In other words, the President was struck by, either:
* a rifle bullet
or:
* a fragment of a rifle bullet
in which case I wonder, if it was a fragment, how they could tell if was a fragment of the bullet and not a fragment of the object the bullet struck.
Since the FBI believes it could have been a fragment, bullets don't just fragment themselves. They must know, i assume, of some object that was roughly between the shooter and Trump that was struck. But we do not know what the object was or what damage happened to it.
And I have read in the news, and checked out the wikipedia page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Donald_Trump
So no one hear wants to take a stab at explaining how five men standing near each other received their minor wounds. My explanation? From a spray of several fragments caused when the bullet struck on object. Let's here someone else's idea.
Mills' camera had a "rolling shutter".
"Rolling shutter is a method of image capture in which a still picture
(in a still camera) or each frame of a video (in a video camera) is
captured not by taking a snapshot of the entire scene at a single
instant in time but rather by scanning across the scene rapidly,
vertically, horizontally or rotationally. In other words, not all parts
of the image of the scene are recorded at exactly the same instant.
(Though, during playback, the entire image of the scene is displayed
at once, as if it represents a single instant in time.) This produces
predictable distortions of fast-moving objects or rapid flashes of light."
Undistorted
Rolling-Shutter Distortion
The left half of the streak was recorded earlier than the other half. In the meanwhile, the bullet had moved a small amount.
Going back to one of the original themes of this posts, emergency room doctors do not act like Sherlock Holmes. They get reports of victims of gunshots wounds coming in, they don't go sit in a corner and smoke a couple of pipes and figure out the details, dydywhile the patients bleed out. They get busy and treat the wounds.
In the Trump case, they don't make a careful study of whether a wound was caused by a rifle bullet or a fragment. They just treat it and report it as a bullet wound.
If the JFK case, they don't make a careful study. Wounds typically occur in pairs. And entrance wound and an exit wound. If they find one wound, they don't carefully look for the other wound and then consider which is the entrance wound and which is the exit wound. If they find a round wound on a dying patient, they will just consider it to be an entrance wound, and not consider the possibility that it was an exit wound that was shored up by a collar.
The statements by emergency room doctos are not Holy Writ.
That explains it. Technically any single point or pixel in the photo is exposed for the specified shutter speed time. However, the time that it takes to expose the overall photo (or even just the length of the bullet streak) is greater than the specified shutter speed time. Since the shutter “roll” apparently moves horizontally when the camera is in landscape orientation, I imagine that if Mills had had the camera turned 90-degrees (portrait orientation) that the shutter roll would have been vertical and a horizontal bullet streak would have been closer to the correct length for that 1/8000 of a second shutter speed setting. Thanks Jerry!
| (https://i.postimg.cc/BvhJffbw/metadata.jpg) | (https://i.postimg.cc/CLy7sZ7m/shutter-mechanical.jpg) |
| (https://i.postimg.cc/ZnZ5cFMr/shutter-speed.jpg) |
The camera used was a Sony ILCE-1 camera which used a vertical travel mechanical shutter:
(https://i.postimg.cc/BvhJffbw/metadata.jpg) (https://i.postimg.cc/CLy7sZ7m/shutter-mechanical.jpg)
(https://i.postimg.cc/ZnZ5cFMr/shutter-speed.jpg)
But that is not a problem since the camera was turned so that the vertical travel of the shutter curtain was in the same direction as the bullet travel.
While the exposure time is effectively 1/8000th of a second, the time it takes for the shutter opening to travel from top to bottom of the image sensor (shutter speed), appears to be 1/400th or 1/500th of a second (depending on whether it was 35 mm full frame or APS-C). This means that the space between shutter curtains as it passes over the sensor is 1/20th or 1/16th of the vertical image captured. So each photo is essentially a series of exposures from top to bottom of 1/8000th second snippets. The time between the beginning of exposure of the top snippet and the end of exposure of the bottom one would be 1/400th of a second or 1/500th of a second.
If the camera used a shutter speed of 1/400th of a second (2.5 ms) and an exposure time of 1/8000th of a second, the time between one end of the streak and the other would be the width of the streak divided by the frame width x 2.5 ms. So in this case, I measure the streak to be 21.4% of the total width of the image. So the total exposure time is:
Exposure time for streak = .214 x 2.5 = .535 milliseconds.
If the camera used a shutter speed of 1/500th of a second (2 ms), the exposure time for the streak would be .214 x 2 = .428 ms.
Bullet speed
If the muzzle speed of the bullet was 3300 feet per second, by the time it travelled 450 feet it would be down to around 2700 fps. So in 1 ms it would travel 2.7 feet. In .428 ms it would travel 1.16 feet or about 14 inches. In .535 seconds it would travel about 17 inches.
So it looks to me like that is the real bullet streak is consistent with being captured by a shutter speed of 1/400th or 1/500th of a second with an exposure time of 1/8000th of a second (shutter curtain window of 1/16th or1/20th of the sensor width travelling across the image sensor in the direction of the bullet travel (ie direction of bullet travel in the image).
I have you and Jerry to thank for the idea. I just worked it out.
Well done Andrew. I had the aspect ratio backwards (in my memory). But I did grasp the concept. Thanks for your efforts and correcting my mistake.
I have you and Jerry to thank for the idea. I just worked it out.
I should add that this also explains why the beginning (left side) of the bullet trail is faint and gets progressively stronger until about 1/4 of the way along.
The beginning of the bullet track captures the bullet as its image passes the trailing shutter curtain. But that part is then cut off from light as the trailing shutter curtain immediately covers the sensor at that point. After 1/8000th of a second or 1/20th of the full frame width (at shutter speed of 1/400th second), the sensor is fully exposed with the bullet present. That continues until the bullet passes the leading curtain. So we should see a faint trail becoming stronger as the bullet moves to the right to about 1/4 of the trail length, then a consistent image afterward until the bullet passes the leading shutter curtain. That appears to me to be consistent with the image, which adds credibility to the authenticity of the photo.
That would indicate a 3.5 megapixel photo. I am not sure where you would obtain the original for download. I expect that NYT has not released it.
The metadata lists the original photo as 2424 x 1474. What is the highest resolution file for this that is freely available online for download?
If this animation is anywhere close to being accurate, then it appears to me that Mills’ bullet streak photo is of the second shot.From the video I measure about .75 seconds between the first two shot sounds arriving at the camera microphone:
(https://i.vgy.me/CJH35J.gif)
However, the question becomes: Which shot hit Trump’s ear? I think the first shot hit his ear and his reaction time to get his hand up to his ear was a little longer than the time between the first and second bullets. But I haven’t ruled out the possibility that the second shot might have been the one that hit his ear.
The camera used was a Sony ILCE-1 camera which used a vertical travel mechanical shutter:
(https://i.postimg.cc/BvhJffbw/metadata.jpg) (https://i.postimg.cc/CLy7sZ7m/shutter-mechanical.jpg)
(https://i.postimg.cc/ZnZ5cFMr/shutter-speed.jpg)
But that is not a problem since the camera was turned so that the vertical travel of the shutter curtain was in the same direction as the bullet travel.
While the exposure time is effectively 1/8000th of a second, the time it takes for the shutter opening to travel from top to bottom of the image sensor (shutter speed), appears to be 1/400th or 1/500th of a second (depending on whether it was 35 mm full frame or APS-C). This means that the space between shutter curtains as it passes over the sensor is 1/20th or 1/16th of the vertical image captured. So each photo is essentially a series of exposures from top to bottom of 1/8000th second snippets. The time between the beginning of exposure of the top snippet and the end of exposure of the bottom one would be 1/400th of a second or 1/500th of a second.
If the camera used a shutter speed of 1/400th of a second (2.5 ms) and an exposure time of 1/8000th of a second, the time between one end of the streak and the other would be the width of the streak divided by the frame width x 2.5 ms. So in this case, I measure the streak to be 21.4% of the total width of the image. So the total exposure time is:
Exposure time for streak = .214 x 2.5 = .535 milliseconds.
If the camera used a shutter speed of 1/500th of a second (2 ms), the exposure time for the streak would be .214 x 2 = .428 ms.
Bullet speed
If the muzzle speed of the bullet was 3300 feet per second, by the time it travelled 450 feet it would be down to around 2700 fps. So in 1 ms it would travel 2.7 feet. In .428 ms it would travel 1.16 feet or about 14 inches. In .535 seconds it would travel about 17 inches.
So it looks to me like that is the real bullet streak is consistent with being captured by a shutter speed of 1/400th or 1/500th of a second with an exposure time of 1/8000th of a second (shutter curtain window of 1/16th or1/20th of the sensor width travelling across the image sensor in the direction of the bullet travel (ie direction of bullet travel in the image).
So if the fragment idea is right then Crooks 1st and 2nd shots had to have been far enough off the target of Trumps body in order to have any chance of hitting some obstacle hard enough to cause the 5.56 mm bullet(s) to fragment into at least 2 pieces.
That raises the question what then was Crooks motive if not to hit Trump at all?
If Crooks was a right winger with no intention to hit Trump but having no problem with shooting at some random unknown people in the crowd, then Crooks motive was multiple:
A. He was a troubled rightwing man who had decided to commit suicide by counter sniper fire.
B. He wanted to cause maximum suspicion directed towards the Democrat party and or the “Globalist Deep State”
C. He admired Trump enough not to target Trump but disliked Trump supporters enough to shoot at them with 8 shots.
If Crooks was a left winger then the 1st and 2nd shots he took were intended to kill Trump by fatal head wound. Crooks motive in this case was also multiple :
D. Crooks was a troubled left winger like the one who previously shot at Republicans playing softball.
E. Crooks wore camouflage clothing and patriotic image shirt and registered as Republican voter to create an illusion of being a right wing lunatic instead of a left wing lunatic.
F. Crooks wanted to take out Trump (AND a few supporters also) with an AR 15 rifle while committing suicide by counter sniper so as to remove a “fascist “ threat to democracy while posthumously becoming a martyr for the Left wing Democrat cause to ban AR-15 rifles.
What are the odds that Trump would be hit by a random bullet fragment in that massive crowd if the shooter wasn't aiming at him? There were thousands of people in attendance. The shooter was clearly trying to kill Trump. There was nothing between himself and Trump to cause the bullet to fragment. Trump was grazed by the bullet. Motive might never be known. Particularly with a biased FBI in charge. I think the shooter was a suicidal, depressed individual who wanted to make his mark on the way out the door. He was perhaps not politically motivated but a product of the politics of COVID lockdowns and school closures that has resulted in mental health issues for people in his age range.This is the question for the "Trump was hit by fragments" theorists that needs answering: "What was between Trump and the shooter that caused this supposed fragmentation either of a bullet or led to shrapnel/shards injuring Trump?"
This is the question for the "Trump was hit by fragments" theorists that needs answering: "What was between Trump and the shooter that caused this supposed fragmentation either of a bullet or led to shrapnel/shards injuring Trump?"
Photos of the teleprompter show no damage. There's nothing else that I can see that was between Trump and the shooter. As the Sherlock Holmes' saying goes, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
F.B.I. Examining Bullet Fragments Found at Trump Rally Site
The bureau is assessing what caused the former president’s wound during an assassination attempt. The question has turned political.
July 25, 2024
The F.B.I. is examining numerous metal fragments found near the stage at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., to determine whether an assassin’s bullet — or potential debris — grazed former President Donald J. Trump’s head, bloodying his ear, according to the F.B.I. and a federal law enforcement official.
The bureau has asked to interview Mr. Trump as part of its broader investigation, hoping to provide insights into the shooting and possibly a more complete record of his injury, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the continuing inquiry.
Unanswered questions about the object that struck the Republican nominee for president have lingered since the shooting on July 13, with Mr. Trump claiming that he was struck by a bullet — and casting his survival as an act of divine intervention.
F.B.I. officials have been more circumspect, citing the need to analyze the evidence before determining what struck Mr. Trump — a bullet, metal shard or something else.
The bureau’s shooting reconstruction team “continues to examine evidence from the scene, including bullet fragments, and the investigation remains ongoing,” the F.B.I. said in a statement on Thursday. In addition to injuring Mr. Trump, the gunman, Thomas Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pa., shot three rally attendees, one fatally.
Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, did not answer whether the bureau had asked to review the former president’s medical records after the incident, but Mr. Trump has not released them publicly.
F.B.I. officials view the identification of the projectile as important, but not a central focus of a sprawling criminal investigation into the actions of the gunman. They are deeply interested in Mr. Crooks’s rationale or any indication that he might have had an accomplice or other help. So far, they have not found a motive nor a conspirator.
“The bureau’s priority is finding whether anybody helped the shooter and eliminating any ongoing threat,” said Michael Harrigan, a former F.B.I. special agent who ran the bureau firearms training unit in Quantico, Va.
“From an investigative standpoint, knowing what happened to the president’s ear doesn’t really matter,” he added.
It matters a great deal from a political standpoint.
“With respect to former President Trump, there’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, told Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, on Wednesday.
That statement prompted a fierce backlash and continued Republican attacks on Mr. Wray.
“It’s shocking Christopher Wray doesn’t know what the facts are, but that probably says more about his job performance — or lack thereof — than anything else,” Mr. Cheung said.
Speaker Mike Johnson told NBC on Thursday: “We’ve all seen the video, we’ve seen the analysis, we’ve heard it from multiple sources in different angles that a bullet went through his ear.”
“There’s a lot of frustration and concern about the leadership with these agencies,” Mr. Johnson added.
In a social media post Thursday night, Mr. Trump lashed out at Mr. Wray, saying: “No wonder the once storied F.B.I. has lost the confidence of America!”
Mr. Trump said there was no glass and no shrapnel. “No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard.”
The F.B.I. said in a statement that the bureau “has been consistent and clear that the shooting was an attempted assassination of former President Trump, which resulted in his injury, as well as the death of a heroic father and the injuries of several other victims.”
It is not unusual for the type of bullet that Mr. Crooks fired from his AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle to tumble end over end and break apart after hitting even a small solid object. Gun experts say a fragment might, for instance, have hit a metal stanchion.
Still, a bullet could have grazed Mr. Trump’s ear, and the F.B.I. has not ruled that out. Investigators found eight rifle casings on the roof where the shooter was positioned.
It is not clear if investigators have eliminated other potential sources of debris. But bureau analysts appear to be focused on metal fragments, as opposed to glass from the teleprompters onstage. Photos of the teleprompters next to Mr. Trump show they were intact after the bullets were fired.
F.B.I. analysts are also examining still images and other electronic evidence for clues.
Gun experts said the F.B.I. could rely on trajectory analysis, a physical examination of any linked bullet and the president’s wound to possibly figure out what happened. A detailed analysis of bullet trajectories, footage, photos and audio by The New York Times strongly suggests Mr. Trump was grazed by the first of eight bullets fired by Mr. Crooks.
The bureau could also get lucky and find the former president’s DNA on a piece of a bullet. But even that would likely not establish if a fragment or the actual bullet hit his ear.
One other scenario investigators are likely to explore: that the bullet, deadly but friable, might have fragmented after skimming Mr. Trump’s ear.
“The problem you have with a bullet traveling at 3,200 feet per second is that it fragments very easily when it hits a surface before the target,” Mr. Harrigan said. “It’s going to be tough with the fragmentation to definitely say what happened. ”
The F.B.I. is examining numerous metal fragments found near the stage at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., to determine whether an assassin’s bullet — or potential debris — grazed former President Donald J. Trump’s head, bloodying his ear, according to the F.B.I. and a federal law enforcement official.
Below is a link to a New York Times article from almost two weeks after the assassination attempt, that has flown under the radar.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/25/us/politics/fbi-bullet-trump-rally.html
Again, here is the critical sentence:
This lays to rest several false arguments made by those who support the notion that Trump must have been hit by a bullet, a fragment is impossible:
* "There is no object that a bullet could have struck that would produce fragments."
FALSE: The presence of these fragments near the stage proves there was at least one object a bullet could have hit, and which MUST have hit, which did would produce fragments.
* "The lack of any damage, any damage what so ever, to the Teleprompter PROVES no fragments COULD POSSIBLY be produced.
FALSE: There were other objects a bullet could have hit before reaching the stage, like the four metal hand rails. The lack of damage to the Teleprompter proves nothing.
* "No object was in the line of sight from the shooter to the target".
FALSE: Assuming the shot is lined up correctly, and a stupid firing position was not chosen, there is never an object in the line of sight for any attempted shooting. But this reasoning assumes that all shots will be perfectly aimed. The reality if that not all shots are perfectly aimed, particularly with shooters without expert training. And so, in reality, fragments are sometimes produced by a bullet, even though there was a direct line path the bullet could have taken to the target without hitting anything else.
* There were absolutely no policemen anywhere near Trump when the shot was fired. The only up close protection personal were Secret Service Agents.
FALSE: At least one of these "Imaginary" policemen is clearly visible in a video near the foot of the podium within a minute of the first shot.
* The early report of four motorcycle policemen standing near Trump being wounded is possibly a dubious early story.
FALSE: The media reported five days later that two of these four motorcycle policemen who were injured were in minor hot water because they might not have had proper authorization to travel to Butler to protect Trump. A strange subsequence story about "Imaginary" motorcycle policemen who were slightly wounded, like Trump.
Clearly the four motorcycle policemen were most likely injured by flying fragments. No one argues "No, each were slightly injured by a rifle bullet." The natural scenario, until proven otherwise, is that all five individuals who were standing near each other, Trump and the four motorcycle policemen, were slightly wounded by fragments, possibly by bullet fragments, but not by rifle bullets.
And there is a clear motive for Trump to lie about this. To sound more heroic for being hit a bullet, rather than a fragment that could have been carrying just one one thousandth of the kinetic energy of a rifle bullet.
If the shutter speed was 1/400 th or 1/500 th of a second, then it is consistent with a bullet speed of 2700 feet per second. But if the shutter speed was 1/100 th of a second, then it is consistent with a much slower speed, which is consistent with a fragment. Which is also consistent with causing a minor wound. And not blasting the top of the ear off. And likely continuing on to crack the skull, unless the head just happened to be turned perfectly.If the shutter speed was 1/100th of a second, then the flash limit would not be 1/400th of a second (full frame: 35.9x24 mm) or 1/500th of a second (APS-C 25.1x16.7 mm). The flash sync limit is the shortest exposure time in which the sensor is fully exposed, that is with the first curtain fully open and the second has not started to cover the sensor.
Whether it is a rifle bullet or a fragment, it takes a good deal of luck to capture the image of a projectile path. But it takes several times more luck to capture the image of a rifle bullet than it does of a fragment. So I still think it is more likely an image of a fragment than of a rifle bullet.
In any case, we do not have enough information to conclude it was an image of a rifle bullet because we do not know the all important shutter speed.