That photo above shows 22-year-old Brian Isaack Clyde, in what’s a pretty typical profile photo of someone who goes on to be a mass shooter, but we’ll get to him later.

When Tom Fox, a photographer for the Dallas Morning News, arrived at a federal building in Dallas yesterday, he would have thought it was just another day on the job.

He was there to snap photos of a defendant in a case about charter school fraud, before heading to the inauguration for the city’s new mayor, when things took a very unexpected turn.

Former Army infantryman Clyde showed up and began to fire, and Fox started snapping. Below from the Washington Post:

Instead of running, Fox’s first instinct was to take photos. The results offered a rare glimpse of an active shooting from the perspective of someone in the immediate path of danger.

Fox snapped one of the gunman, taken from just a few meters away, as the man approached the building in a low walk, his gloved hands holding a gun and ammunition clips racked on his belt. Authorities later said that the man had five 30-round magazines.

He also snapped photos of people, a security guard and a man in a suit fleeing as the gunman released a volley of shots. Then he jumped behind a column near the building’s entrance, attempting to make himself “as small as possible”…

Here’s the photo of Fox’s that really grabbed the world’s attention:

There must be a moment, just after you take that photo, where you think it’s all over.

Thankfully, Fox was unharmed, and also managed to capture this video of authorities taking Clyde down:

If you want an idea of just how close Fox was to the action, this video, shot by another bystander from an elevated position in a building across the street, should do the trick.

That’s the photographer hiding behind the column to the right of the entrance:

Just to make it clear where Fox was stood:

We shouldn’t be that surprised to find out that Clyde was known to upload right-wing memes to Facebook, including memes about Nazism and the Confederacy.

He was also pretty forthright about what lay ahead, knowing that he would more than likely die in his attack. This from the Daily Beast:

Last week, Clyde uploaded a Facebook video suggesting plans with a gun.

“I don’t know how much longer I have, but a storm is coming. However, I’m not without defense,” he said in the brief video, pulling out a rifle. “I’m fuckin’ ready. Let’s do it.”

On Saturday, he uploaded a picture of 10 gun magazines. On Sunday, he uploaded a picture of a sword with the caption “A modern gladius to defend the modern Republic.”

…He frequently posted memes that suggested familiarity with the far-right internet.

In late May, he posted a meme about quitting meme groups that forbid bullying, transphobia, and racism. An April meme suggested “the solution to all of our nation’s political problems” by incorporating some libertarian and eco-friendly ideologies into far-right authoritarianism, represented by a green flag with a Nazi swastika in the middle.

A May 4 post defended Infowars founder Alex Jones for his claims about vast networks of pedophiles. Other posts suggested transphobic and anti-feminist views.

Hmm, I wonder who he voted for?

[sources:washpost&dailybeast]