White House correspondents’ dinner shooter faces formal charges

By Thérèse Boudreaux
The Center Square

The California man accused of charging security and shooting a Secret Service officer at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Saturday night will appear Monday in federal court.

Among other possible charges, the 31-year-old suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, is facing two counts of using a firearm during a crime of violence and one count of assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon, media outlets reported.

“It is clear that this individual was intent on doing as much harm as he could,” U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro posted on social media. “Thank God for our law enforcement who acted so quickly to prevent what could have been a horrific event.”

President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and members of Trump’s cabinet were at the event and were rushed out of the banquet hall of the Washington, D.C. Hilton., less than two miles from the White House.

The Hilton was also the place where John Hinckley Jr. shot President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981.

A long gun and shell casings were recovered at the scene, where Allen was detained. No one else but the Secret Service agent, who Trump said he spoke to and was doing OK, sustained injuries during the incident.

The Center Square’s White House Bureau Chief Sarah Roderick-Fitch was in attendance at the event, and said she heard a loud noise before attendees started screaming. Secret Service agents then stormed the room and began escorting people out, Roderick-Fitch said.

Federal law enforcement officers searched the suspect’s California home and interviewed members of his family.

According to reports from media outlets, Allen was an amateur video game developer and a tutor from Torrence, California. He graduated from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena in 2017 and donated $50 to the campaign of then presidential candidate Kamala Harris through ActBlue.

Allen’s “manifesto” sent to family members before the attack, which the New York Post reported Sunday, said he wanted to minimize casualties at the hotel but, “I would still go though most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary (on the basis that most “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.”

Allen may enter a plea during his Monday arraignment.