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On April 25, during the annual White House Correspondence Dinner hosted at the Washington Hilton, multiple gunshots were heard in the ballroom and on the various live streams showing the event. After a few minutes of confusion, US President Donald Trump was escorted out of the ballroom, and the hundred or so journalists in the room were left scrambling to figure out what happened and why the President was ushered out with a sly grin on his face. White House personnel were the first to leave, and the journalists present slowly made their way through the main exit of the event space. According to police, the attack was an attempt on President Donald Trump's life, with a variety of other Republican politicians being targeted as well.
Suspect storms lobby
At 8:35 PM EST, shots were heard inside the Washington Hilton Hotel. A suspect reportedly rushed through the lobby and attempted to breach a security checkpoint to gain access to the ballroom where the dinner was held. The suspect discharged his weapon once, hitting a Secret Service member. The Secret Service member was wearing a bulletproof vest and survived the incident with minor injuries. The suspect was immediately subdued and taken into custody by police and the Secret Service, and it was revealed to the public that the shooter had a shotgun, a handgun, and a knife. The suspect also sent a manifesto to multiple family members before the incident. The manifesto included comments about Donald Trump, though it didn't mention him by name. The manifesto referred to Trump as a ‘pedophile, rapist, and traitor'.
Who is Cole Allen?
The suspect was identified by police as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen. Allen travelled from California to Washington, DC on an Amtrak train before checking into a room at the Washington Hilton on April 24, one day before the shooting. The room was booked on April 6, showing that the attack was premeditated for at least two weeks. Cole Allen worked as a software engineer. He graduated from the prestigious Caltech before earning a Master's degree in computer science from California State University at Dominguez Hills. Allen also taught computer science online, earning a ‘Teacher of the Month' award from a private tutoring service, C2 Education. While a student at Caltech, Allen was a part of multiple student groups, giving the public an insight into his personality. Allen was a member of the school's Christian fellowship, as well as the NERF club, which stages NERF ‘battles' across campus.
On his LinkedIn page, Allen described himself as a “mechanical engineer and computer scientist by degree, independent game developer by experience, teacher by birth.” Allen previously worked as a mechanical engineer for UK Controls in South Pasadena and as a teaching assistant at Caltech. In 2016, he competed in a robotics competition at the school. Allen was injured while being detained, but was not shot; only the Secret Service member shot by Allen was injured.
‘Anti-Christian', ‘Anti-Trump' manifesto?
According to Donald Trump, the manifesto that Allen allegedly sent to family members before the shooting contained ‘anti-Christian' and ‘anti-Trump' comments. In the manifesto, Allen refers to himself with the monikers “Friendly Federal Assassin” and “Cole coldForce.” Authorities were alerted to the manifesto by the suspect's brother, who lives in New London, Connecticut. Allen's brother reached out to the New York Post, which published excerpts from the document. In the document, Allen claims that he is not a victim and that only the oppressed turn the other cheek. According to Allen's sister, who spoke with law enforcement, Allen was prone to making ‘radical statements' and frequently spoke of his desire to ‘do something to fix the issues with today's world'. It's unclear what made the manifesto ‘anti-Christian', but the manifesto called Trump's regime ‘un-Christian', implying that Allen was fighting for Christian values.
Allen willing to ‘go through' targets
While this is not the first time someone has made an attempt on Donald Trump's life, this was the first time the suspect was willing to target ‘bystanders'. Allen made it clear in his manifesto that he would be willing to kill nearly everyone in the room to get to Trump, other than Kash Patel. Patel was the only official named in the manifesto as a non-target. According to Allen, just attending the event meant complicity in Trump's regime.
“I would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary (on the basis that most people chose to attend a speech by a pedophile, rapist, and traitor, and are thus complicit), but I really hope it doesn't come to that”.
If Allen was hoping for support from either the right or left, his willingness to kill a roomful of journalists will not win him favour.
Trump using the attack
Trump got right to using the attack for his own benefit. Trump began with a speech just thirty minutes after the attack, joking;, “Nobody told me this was such a dangerous profession, if Marco had told me, maybe I wouldn't have run.” Trump is also leveraging the attack to build his new $400 million ballroom. The ballroom, which Trump initially promised would be built entirely with private donations and his own money, clearly failed to garner the support it needed. Lindsay Graham confirmed that Trump only received $68 million in donations, and that the government would be seeking $332 million of taxpayer dollars to finish the job. The 90,000 sq ft ballroom will be double the size of the old space, being able to house 1,000 people. According to Trump, the ballroom needs to be finished as soon as possible for security reasons. Trump claimed that if the event had been held in the new ballroom, an incident like this would have been ‘impossible'.
