'If he spots me, I'm just as good as dead': News photographer who was staking out Dallas courthouse on routine assignment recounts harrowing moment gunman opened fire as he hid just feet away

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Dallas Morning News photographer Tom Fox was on the scene of the shooting Monday

A newspaper photographer who was just yards away from the gunman who opened fire on a federal courthouse in Dallas has spoken out about the harrowing ordeal.

Tom Fox, a staff photographer with the Dallas Morning News, was outside the Earle Cabell Federal Building on Monday waiting to snap a defendant in a charter-school fraud case when shots rang out at 8.40am. 

'What I thought at the moment was backfire turned into numerous shots being fired at the federal courthouse,' Fox recounted in an interview with his own paper.

Fox dropped to a knee as he tried to figure out where the shots were coming from, and then snapped a photo as he saw a lawyer and a security guard he'd been chatting with earlier sprinting toward him.

Fox snapped this photo as he heard gunshots and tried to determine where they were coming from outside the Earle Cabell Federal Building, where he was waiting for a defendant

Though Fox didn't see him at the time, the shooter is visible in the background as he crosses the street and approaches the federal building while firing shots at the facade

Fox saw a figure at the end of the street and looked through his telephoto lens, realizing it was the gunman stooping to pick up a dropped magazine

'So I pulled up my long lens and saw someone who I realized was the shooter. And I think, 'Oh my God.' I squeezed off a few frames as he picked something up — a clip, I think — and then I turned and ran,' Fox recalled.

Fox took cover behind a column on the other side of the main entrance of the federal building as the shooter stormed toward him.  

'He approached the door and opened fire on the door, and I can vividly hear that glass breaking,' says Fox. 'The only thing I could think in that moment was, 'please don't pass me.' Because I could see straight out across the street, and he was just literally around the corner, eight or 10 feet from me.'

'I just knew if I made myself small enough he wouldn't see me,' he recalled.

'I just stood there and prayed that he wouldn't walk past me,' Fox said. 'Because if he walks past me and sees me, he's going to shoot me. He's already got the gun out.

'If he spots me, I'm just as good as dead. I'm a guy with a camera, I've already photographed him once on the sidewalk, and I don't know if he saw me or not, but if you saw somebody with a camera and you're committing a crime, I'm sure they wouldn't think twice about it,' Fox said. 

Fox (circled) crouched behind a column as the gunman fired into the glass door of the federal building just feet away from him

Shattered glass is seen in the entry doors after shots were fired Monday at the Earle Cabell federal courthouse in Dallas

The gunman can be seen racing from the federal building to the parking lot across the street as Fox continues to shelter behind the column on the far right

'I'll never forget the sound of those repeated firing and all that glass shattering. It seemed like forever before I heard return gunfire,' Fox said. 

In reality, just seconds after the gunman fired at the glass door of the building, law enforcement returned from from the sidewalk, a bystander video shot from a nearby building shows. 

Fox was trapped in the crossfire, huddled behind the column, as bullets struck the building's facade just feet away from him. 

Though Fox couldn't see it from his vantage point, the shooter retreated across the street to a parking lot as SWAT teams pursued him.

Fox saw officers running toward him from the other end of the sidewalk, and he told them that he hadn't seen the shooter pass his position. 

Then, as he saw officer run out across Jackson Street toward the parking lot, Fox began to relax.

'If they were running out in the open, I figured it was safe,' he said.

Fox snapped this image of the damage to the building's revolving glass door moments after the shooting, as federal officers secured the scene and searched for the gunman

Officers crossed the street to the parking lot where the gunman had fled, guns drawn

Two women take cover behind a car as Fox and the officers entered the parking lot

Fox's news instincts kicked in, and he followed the officers across the street, where he crouched behind a car and observed a subject on the ground.

He took more pictures and video as the officers examined the man, who had been struck by law enforcement gunfire, and pulled off his mask.

The gunman, identified as 22-year-old Brian Issack Clyde, was pronounced dead on arrival at a nearby hospital.

Clyde was discharged from the Army in 2017 and authorities have not released a motive in the attack. 

'And he was just so young. All I could think was 'why?' There's just too many questions I haven't processed yet,' Fox said. 

'But this young man, what was it all for? Was it really worth it — for this?'

Fox observed officers tending to the gunman on the ground after he was shot by law enforcement. The suspect was identified as 22-year-old Brian Issack Clyde

Clyde was transported to a nearby hospital, where he was declared dead

Clyde is pictured in a Facebook photo in a short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt printed with lobsters, holding a gun. He frequently posted images of guns and knives online 

Fox was taken with other witnesses to a nearby FBI command post where he answered questions about what he had seen.

As he was escorted back to his vehicle to leave, he snapped a photo of a bomb squad robot alongside the gunman's car.

'Your journalistic instincts just kick in,' he said. 'You use the camera almost as a shield. I also felt a journalistic duty to do all that.'  

Fox said that in his 29 years as a photojournalist, he had never feared for his life until Monday.

He said that in the immediate aftermath, his focus was entirely on getting back to the newsroom to quickly get his photos and first-hand information out to readers.

'It's kind of like other large stories that emotionally affect you, you just at the moment have to do your job, kind of put this in a little box and put it on a shelf, and deal with it later,' Fox said.