California Engineer Identified in Suspected Shooting at White House Correspondents' Dinner

A 31-year-old engineer and computer scientist was identified by media reports and President Donald Trump as the suspected shooter at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night.

Cole Tomas Allen, of Torrance, California, was apprehended following the firing of shots at the Washington Hilton, where Trump was scheduled to deliver remarks to a ballroom full of journalists, cabinet officials, and Hilton staff. Allen’s name surfaced in media reports shortly before Trump posted two photos of a suspect following his apprehension. The person in the photos Trump posted matches photos of Allen.

In dramatic scenes, several shots were heard outside the ballroom, after which Trump and Vice President JD Vance were immediately rushed off the stage by the United States Secret Service. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting incident, it briefly appeared as if the event would proceed—Trump posted “LET THE SHOW GO ON” on Truth Social—but the event was eventually shut down.

According to the Metropolitan Police Department, the suspect “charged” a Secret Service checkpoint at the Hilton hotel, and was intercepted by agents. MPD interim chief Jeffery Carroll said the suspect was carrying a “shotgun, handgun, and multiple knives.”

At a White House press conference following the shooting, Trump said one United States Secret Service agent was shot but saved from serious injury by his bulletproof vest. Trump said the agent, who was not named, is “doing great” and in “great shape.” No other injuries were immediately reported.

The suspect was later transported to a local hospital “to be evaluated,” according to Carroll, who said he appears to be a “lone actor.”

Around the time Trump’s press conference began on Saturday night, he posted a picture on his Truth Social account appearing to show the suspected shooter on the ground, with his hands restrained behind his back, and a foil warming blanket covering the lower half of his body.

A WIRED review of public databases shows a seemingly minimal online presence associated with Allen’s name. According to his LinkedIn profile, he graduated from Caltech in 2017 with a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and from California State University Dominguez Hills in 2025 with a master’s in computer science. An apparent photo of Allen that appears on Caltech’s website identifies him as a member of the school's Mechanical Engineering 72 class, described by the school as a “two-term engineering design lab” for building robots and autonomous vehicles. His name is also listed in a 2025 Dominguez Hills graduation program. A search in a public facial recognition database returns only two images, both apparently of him as an undergraduate.

According to the suspected shooter’s LinkedIn profile, he has been employed part-time since March 2020 at C2 Education, a private company that helps students prepare for the SAT and ACT exams. In December 2024, C2 Education said in posts on LinkedIn and Facebook that he was the company’s “December Teacher of the Month.”

Since 2018, the suspected shooter has self-identified on his LinkedIn profile as a “self-employed” indie game developer. He appears to have released an “atomic fighting game” called Bohrdom on Steam in 2018. The game was advertised using accounts on YouTube and X that appeared to have little to no following. The caption for a trailer of the game describes it as a “non-violent, skill-based, asymmetrical fighting game loosely based on a chemistry model that is itself loosely based on reality.”

C2 Education and did not immediately respond to requests for comment. When reached for comment, the Metropolitan Police Department referred WIRED to a video of its public press conference.

At Saturday’s press conference, Trump described the shooter as a “lone wolf” and a “thug that attacked our Constitution.” It’s unclear, however, if Allen’s target included the president, the members of the press present at the dinner, or both.

“What a beautiful evening,” Trump told Jiang at the White House press conference on Saturday night. “We’re going to reschedule.”

Prior to Saturday’s apparent attack, Trump survived at least one assassination attempt during the first 15 months of his second term in office. A shooter hit Trump’s ear while he was delivering a speech in Butler, Pennsylvania in 2024. Asked at Saturday’s press conference why he keeps being targeted, Trump speculated that it is related to his actions in office.

“The people that make the biggest impact, they’re the ones that they go after,” Trump said. “They don’t go after the ones that don’t do much because they like it that way.”