The California teacher and engineer charged with opening fire near the White House Correspondents’ Dinner had a clear mission, to shoot Trump administration officials.
Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, sent a note to members of his family roughly 10 minutes before Saturday’s attack outlining his intentions. In it, he listed administration officials as targets, ranked from highest to lowest position. He appeared to exempt FBI Director Kash Patel from that list.
“I experience rage thinking about everything this administration has done,” he wrote.
Allen reportedly apologised in the note to his parents, colleagues, students, and bystanders. He said he did not expect forgiveness.
Federal agents stopped Allen just steps from the ballroom at the Washington Hilton. Inside, President Donald Trump and other White House officials were dining with journalists at the formal evening event. Allen had come armed: a shotgun, a handgun, and knives. He pushed through a security checkpoint and made a run for the ballroom. Officers opened fire. So did he. He was eventually brought to the ground.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said authorities believe Allen travelled by train from Los Angeles to Chicago, then onward to Washington, DC. He checked into the hotel hosting the dinner one or two days before the attack.
Allen’s brother received the pre-attack note and contacted the New London Police Department in Connecticut. The department confirmed it was reached at around 10:49 p.m. Saturday, more than two hours after the shooting. Police then alerted federal law enforcement, and the brother was interviewed.
Allen’s sister also spoke to the Secret Service and Montgomery County Police after the incident. She said her brother had a habit of making radical statements and had mentioned a plan to do “something” to address problems he saw in the world today.
A Bluesky account believed to belong to Allen contained posts critical of the Trump administration, the U.S. war with Iran, and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Allen was not shot during the confrontation but was taken to a local hospital. He is expected to face federal charges on Monday. President Trump, speaking shortly after the attack, called the suspect a “whack job” and a “lone wolf.”
Public records and interviews paint a picture of a highly intelligent individual. Allen once interned for NASA, studied at a prestigious California university, and participated in a Nerf club and Christian fellowship there. He later developed video games and worked as a part-time teacher.
A former volleyball teammate who knew Allen at Pacific Lutheran High School in Gardena, California, described him as a “borderline genius” who was “super stable.” He said Allen never had to study. Knowledge simply came naturally to him.
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