English past tense grammar question

The sad event outside the White House the other day provoked a question from an aquaintance on seeing a headline which began "Man shoots himself..."

He argues it ought to be "Man shot himself".

I said either were perfectly correct, though unable to explain the difference in tenses, and my Longman English Grammar is not to hand.

Is the former an example of the historical present?

via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/2Fphd2G