Shelly Fielman, an NBC News cameraman who was on the scene of the attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981, will retire at the end of this month after 50 years with the network.
Fielman’s first day at NBC News was November 22, 1963, the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Fielman was sent there as an audio engineer. Days later, he was a few feet away when Lee Harvey Oswald was killed.
In March 1981, working as a photographer, Fielman recorded John Hinckley’s attempted assassination Reagan at the Hilton Hotel. (Fielman is pictured here waiting for Reagan’s arrival, with Hinckley standing just left of the cameraman.) In a “Nightly News” report on the 30th anniversary of the Reagan shooting, Fielman recalled, “it was like watching a very bad movie on a two-inch black and white screen.”
Watch his account of the incident after the jump.
Photo courtesy: Fielman family