UPDATE: Vapor trail caught by Mills Photo; Dawson, Malone/ArnGrimr: Straight-shootin' Angles on the Bullets, plus, analysis of speed of the second bullet.

Still looking as though the Butler did It--albeit with some big organizational help from somewhere above: murder by omission as well as commission. QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS WILL HELP UNRAVEL THIS CRIME.

Figure 1, above. This artistic model is intended to convey the message that solving this crime will be greatly aided by careful, technical, scientific analysis of the events, the records of which—and the tools for which—are available online or elsewhere for the Citizen investigator.

There seems to be clarity provided here by Ryan Dawson, “There was one shooter . . .” (Substack) here:

There was 1 shooter, don't get kooked

as well as by Dr. Robert Malone endorsed reposting of ArnGrimR (Substack), here:

Trump assassination attempt: separating fact from fiction

Consider, if you will, an earlier analysis of the second bullet passing at least some inches to the President’s (or, the former President if you prefer) right.

Trace of Bullet in the Mills Photo Passed Inches to the Right of Trump's Head

This is inconsistent with the speculation provided in a video of a dynamic wireframe model matched to the President’s head and rotated to show the relationship of the head to the tracks of three bullets. In that dynamic model (which I am now having trouble finding online), the tracks beyond the first were conjectured. The first is shown striking the right ear of President Trump. In this we of course have considerable confidence. The second—dubiously—is shown also striking, or nearly striking, the same ear. The previous link provides an argument against this path for the second bullet based upon the photograph by Doug Mills of the New York Times.

In an interview with NPR, and perhaps elsewhere, Mr. Mills provides the important fact that his shutter speed of 1/8000 of a second for his iconic photograph of former President Trump nearly being assassinated. This is discussed further below.

Doug Mills Used 1/8000-Second Shutter Speed for Photo of the Streaking Bullet

But regard the paths that the bullets followed, the interviewer for NPR (Steve Inskeep) makes the incorrect assumption that the bullet presumably caught in the photograph was the same bullet that grazed the former President’s ear. From the transcript of the interview linked above:

“INSKEEP: Doug Mills talking with our colleague, Scott Detrow, there - eight-thousandth of a second for the shutter speed, fast enough to capture a silvery blur - apparently, the bullet that had just touched the former president.”

For fastidious analysts, these details matter and they help in the full accounting of micro-events that are so critical for proper forensic—and someday historical—analysis. As the first two links above establish, the identified killer, Thomas Crooks, appears to be the sole gunman who fired in the direction of Trump. The positions of three wounded spectators—one fatally—and damaged to a railing and a hydraulic hose fix the line of fire and the shooter’s position or positions.

The shutter speed of 1/8000 of a second, the length of event-time captured on film, and the range of estimated bullet speeds provide interesting information. The streak of the bullet appears to be 1.1 times the distance from the tip of Mr. Trump’s nose to the back of the head, roughly in the region of the skull called the occipital protuberance. Mr. Trump has a relatively large head. We might guestimate the above-described distance to be about 9.5 inches, suggesting a bullet track of about 10.5 inches, or 0.87 foot. Thus, the bullet would seemed to have 0.87 feet per 0.000125 seconds, or 6,960 feet per sec (fps). This is double what is considered to be the upper end of muzzle velocities for an AR-15 type of rifle and is difficult to reconcile. This would be further complicated if the second bullet was slowed down by passage through any bodies prior to arriving at the point where it was photographed. Perhaps Mr. Mills was not photographing with a 1/8000-second shutter speed. There may be effects produced in the photosensitive array of a digital camera which are beyond my knowledge at present and which effectively altered the processing speed of the camera’s eye. Speculating along such lines, perhaps a speeding bullet is heated by passage through air and therefore is also emitting a greater intensity of infrared wavelengths as well as reflected light from the sun. Infrared light is known to affect photosensitive arrays—the “retina” of the camera. If readers have further insights or corrections to my thinking, please do supply comments.

UPDATE [Added 2024-07-18]: One of the great things about having friends from rural America is that they are very smart (it takes a good bit of intelligence to run a farming/ranching business successfully) and they have a lot of practical wisdom and experience. So, I have learned that the streak in the photograph by Doug Mills is most likely the result of a vapor trail. As a bullet—or any object —passes through the air, it compresses the air which must flow around it, and then it expands again on the trailing side of the object. The great change in pressure, especially for objects traveling at hypersonic speeds, results in water vapor condensing.

We are narrowing the hypothesized angles of gunfire to center on a single shooter. But other curious aspects of how Mr. Crooks could have confidently predicted the complex set of opportunities in order to attempt to execute such a just-in-time assassination strongly points to coordination by others, as others have already observed and enumerated. The “lone, mad triggerman” approach seems to be emerging as the preferable strategy by nefarious actors for providing risk-management cover for their conspiratorial plotting. This seems to be even preferable (if it works) to the multiple-shooter, kill-box approach with only added utilization of a “framed, lone patsy” as was almost certainly employed in the JFK and RFK assassinations. Nonetheless, the current educational system strongly promotes being a “team player,” “collaborative learning,” and “management by committee.” Perhaps assassinations and murder are plotted by such collaboration—-just as the duties of the Oval Office now seem to be executed.