An armed robbery suspect's dramatic final moments have been captured on film as he charged at police with a gun in the US.
With a cigarette in his mouth, Robert Sylvester, 57, leapt from his car and jumped a traffic barricade before firing shots at police in Bloomington, Illinois.
David Proeber, photographer for local newspaper the Bloomington Patangraph, took 47 rapid snaps of the extraordinary scene.
"I looked up in the rear view mirror as I was braking and saw police running toward him," the Daily Mail reported Proeber as saying.
"His eyes met mine. The next thing I knew, he leaped over the barricade and took a few steps at the car."
The photographer, just 45 metres from the confrontation, then ducked in his car and sped away to safety.
Sylvester, who was a suspect in a six recent armed robberies, was shot down in the middle of the road before later dying in hospital.
The ironworker had earlier led police on a wild chase reaching speeds of up to 145km/h on the I-55 Interstate.
The suspect embarked on his deadly shootout after being cornered by police after road spikes were used to puncture the front tyres of his 4WD.
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