SHOTS NEAR THE HEAD TABLE: THE COLE ALLEN WHITE HOUSE DINNER ATTACK

0:03 Caalaroga Shark Media. Good morning. I'm Garrett Fisher. This is Daily Crime Injustice for Monday, April twenty seventh, twenty twenty six, and we are doing something different today. We are setting aside the show I had built for you. We are setting it aside because of what happened Saturday night in Washington, DC, eight thirty six pm Eastern Saturday, April twenty fifth, the Washington Hilton Hotel. Inside the cavernous ballroom on the lower level, twenty six hundred guests were settling in for the White House Correspondence Association dinner. Tuxedos, gowns, salad plates being set down.

0:47 President Donald Trump, First Lady Milania Trump, Vice President J. D. Vance, Cabinet members, congressional leadership, journalists, dignitaries all in the room. The President of the United States was the head table for the first time in his political career, attending this dinner as a sitting president for the very first time, and the program had just barely started. Outside the ballroom, up the stairs near the main magnetometer screening area, the same metal detectors every guest had walked through on the way in. A man in his early thirties came barreling through. He was wearing all black in one hand, a shotgun on him, a handgun on him, multiple knives, and he had a clear line of sight down to where the President of the United States was sitting. Five to eight shots.

1:36 That is the count law enforcement is giving us right now. Five to eight shots in maybe twenty seconds. Secret Service agents drew their weapons and engaged one of them. Took around in the vest and is going to be okay. The shooter never made it past the checkpoint into the ballroom. He was tackled to the ground, handcuffed, and removed from the building alive. Trump was rushed off stage. J. D. Vance was rushed off stage. Robert F. Kennedy Junior was rushed out with his wife Cheryl Hines. House speaker Mike Johnson was rushed out. Marco Rubio dove under his table at the front of the room. From one corner of the ballroom, a chant of God Bless America started up as the President was hustled toward an exit. The man with the shotgun has a name, Cole Thomas Allen. He is thirty one years old. He is a teacher from Torrance, California, named teacher of the Month at the tutoring company where he worked just sixteen months ago. He is a cal Tech graduate with a master's degree in computer science. He has no criminal record. He has until Saturday night, never been on the radar of federal law enforcement. And he traveled across the entire country by train from Los Angeles to Chicago to Washington, checked into the same hotel where the dinner was being held, the same hotel where Ronald Reagan was shot in nineteen eighty one, by the way, and we are going to get to that, and then walk downstairs in a tuxedo of guns and tried to do what investigators say he intended to do, shoot people

3:09 who work in the Trump administration. That is where we are. That is the night. The arraignment is happening today Monday in federal court in DC. The investigation is roughly thirty six hours old as I'm sitting here recording this. There is a great deal we do not yet know. But here's what we do know, and we are going to walk through all of it. Who he is, what he did, What investigators are finding in his apartment, his hotel room, his computer, his writings, and what questions this whole thing leaves on the table about security at events the President of the United States is attending in the year twenty twenty six, when this is the third attempt on his life inside of two years. Stay with me. Let me set the scene properly, because the room itself, the White House Correspondence Dinner, is the biggest night the Washington Press Corps throws all year, twenty six hundred people in a single ballroom, reporters, network anchors, cabinet officials, members of Congress, donors, celebrities, the President of the United States. Traditionally headlines. There is comedy, there is awards, there are speeches, And for the first time in his entire political career, Donald Trump was attending as a sitting president. He had skipped the dinner all four years of his first term. He had agreed to come this year, and the room was frankly tense before anybody fired a shot. In the weeks leading up to Saturday, more than two hundred and fifty journalists had signed an open letter calling for what they described as a forceful

4:42 pushback against Trump. At the event, huff Post had pulled out and boycotted entirely Jim Acosta had called for reporters to walk out. The mood inside the Washington Hillton on Saturday evening was already heavy with the politics of the night before anyone heard a noise. The entertainment had been booked. A mentalist named Oz Pearlman was set to perform waigiad Jiang of CBS News. The president of the White House Correspondence Association, had taken the stage to welcome everyone. Salad plates were going down, Waiters were clearing them. The dinner had not even reached the entree. And here is the security detail that matters. Once the President was seated and the head table was locked in, no more guests were being admitted to the ballroom, which meant that Secret Service personnel had begun by protocol to take down the magnetometer screening area outside the ballroom doors. The metal detectors were being disassembled, The line was empty, The post was beginning its breakdown. That is the moment Cole Thomas Allen came down the stairs. He had been a guest at the Hilton since Friday. Investigators tell us his room was on the tenth floor. He had checked in the day before the dinner and on Saturday at eight thirty six pm.

6:01 He came down to the lobby level wearing all black and carrying a shotgun openly in his hand. Surveillance video that the President himself later released on Truth Social shows what happens next. Alan sprints passed the checkpoint. Officers turn, they draw, He gets off shots. They get off shots. One Secret Service agent is hit in the chest, but the round buries into his bullet resistant vest. He stays standing. He stays in the fight. Alan is brought to the ground inside of seconds. He is not hit by gunfire. He is alive. He has taken into custody and removed inside the ballroom. The experience is different depending on where you were sitting. Olivia Rinaldi of CBS News, who had been at Butler, Pennsylvania when Trump was shot in twenty twenty four, was at the dinner Saturday. She told her network she heard what sounded like three to four successive shots.

6:57 She said it originally sounded like plates falling, loud noises, but she had been at Butler, she knew that was gunfire. She could smell the gunpowder. The President himself, at the head table said something different. He said he heard a noise and thought it was a tray going down. He said it was Milania who recognized it first. He told reporters later, and I am paraphrasing him here, that Milania was very cognizant. He said she immediately knew it was a bad noise. He said it was a rather traumatic experience for her. Across the ballroom. Video captured the next ten seconds Cabinet members diving under tables, Marco Rubio under his table, looking across at his wife, looking up at Trump, trying to figure out what was happening. Tactical agents jumping over chairs and tables, weapons drawn, sprinting toward the dais, the first lady ducking, the Vice President being walked off stage by an agent on each elbow, and then the rest of them, Ert F. Kennedy Junior and Cheryl Hines speaker, Mike Johnson, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Treasury Secretary Scott bessentt FBI Director Cash Pttel House Majority Leader Steve Scalise being moved out one by one, table by table as agents went and got them from one corner of the room.

8:18 Somebody started a God bless America chant. The president was being walked off as it began. The dinner never resumed. They tried briefly Waiga. John got back on stage and announced the program would continue in a moment. By nine to twenty pm, the Secret Service was clearing the room. Dinner had not been served. The waiters had been picking up salad plates when the lockdown happened. The night was over. Jong told the room from the stage that the President had insisted the dinner be rescheduled within thirty days. The journalists in the room, and this is to their credit, we're already on the phone calling in copy as they were being walked out the door. Within an hour, Trump was at the White House briefing room. He was flanked by Vice President Vance Press Secretary Caroline Levitt, Secretary Hegseth, Secretary Rubio, FBI Director Patel, Acting Attorney General Todd blanche.

9:12 He praised the Secret Service. He called the suspect a lone wolf and a sick person, and said, when asked if he believed he had been the target quote, when you're impactful, they go after you. When you're not impactful, they leave you alone. He also took the opportunity to point out that the Washington Hilton, in his words, was not a particularly secure building, and used that as an argument for the new ballroom he is having built at the White House to replace the East Wing. We are going to leave that one alone. Look, I'm going to be honest with you. There is something almost unbearably American about the fact that the Knight, the President of the United States, walks into a room full of journalists for the first time in his political career, at a dinner that is supposed to be about a free press, in the relationship between the people who govern and the people who cover them. That is the night a man with a shotgun comes through the door. We have lived through several iterations of this. Now Butler, Pennsylvania, July twenty twenty four Thomas Crooks on a rooftop who killed a spectator and put around through Trump's ear before Secret Service killed him.

10:20 The golf course in West Palm Beach in September of that year, where Ryan Routh lay in the bushes with a rifle and was spotted by an agent before he could fire. Routh was convicted last year and sentenced to life. In February and now Saturday Night at the Washington Hilton, three three attempts in less than two years, and the people whose entire job it is to stop them have three times done exactly that. The Secret Service agent who took a round in his vest Saturday night gets to go home to his family because he was wearing the vest. That is not a small thing. That is the difference between a story I'm telling you on a Monday morning and a national tragedy. So who is Cole Thomas Allen.

11:10 He is thirty one years old. He is from Torrance, California, which is a coastal suburb in the South Bay region of Los Angeles, about twenty miles south of downtown LA. The mayor of Torrance, George Chen, issued a statement Saturday night condemning what happened and saying that one resident's alleged actions do not define the community. The city has about one hundred and forty three thousand residents. Allan had lived there most of his life since he was a teenager, with a stretch in San Gabriel for about a year and a half between twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen. He has four siblings, two sisters a brother. He had been living with his parents at their house. FBI agents and tactical gear with armored vehicles surrounded that house Saturday night.

11:54 While helicopter circled overhead. The neighbors stood out in the drizzle and watched. All describes himself on his LinkedIn profile this way quote a mechanical engineer and computer scientist by degree, independent game developer by experience, teacher by birth. Let me walk you through that resume. He went to the California Institute of Technology Caltech, one of the most selective scientific universities in the country. He graduated in twenty seventeen with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. While he was there, he was a member of two student organizations he listed publicly, the Caltech Christian Fellowship and the Caltech nerf Club that is on the record. He had an internship at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He was featured in a local Los Angeles ABC News story his senior year for a senior project.

12:47 He had developed a prototype emergency brake system for wheelchairs to help elderly users. He worked for a year as a mechanical engineer after graduation, then he became, in his own words, an independent video game developer. He published a game on the Steam platform in twenty eighteen, called Boredom bohr Dom. He registered the trademark in twenty eighteen. The game sales for one dollar and ninety nine cents. The description on Steam and I Am quoting it because it Matters calls it a skill based, nonviolent asymmetrical fighting game loosely derived from a chemistry model that is itself loosely based on reality. He told prospective buyers to think of it as a hybrid of a bullet hell and a racing game, with the inclusion of self propelled pinballs. He composed the music himself. He drew over seven hundred and fifty original graphics. He was working on a second game, working title First Law. In twenty twenty, he started picking up tutoring work at a company called C two Education.

13:50 C two helps high school students prepare for the SAT and college admissions. He worked at the Torrents branch. He stayed there for about six years. In December of twenty twenty four, the company named him Teacher of the Month. They put a celebratory post up on Facebook congratulating him. While he was tutoring, he went back to school. He enrolled at California State University Dominguez Hills in twenty twenty two to pursue a master's degree in computer science. He graduated in May of twenty twenty five. The chair of the program, a professor named Bin Tang, talked to the Associated Press on Sunday. Professor Tang said Alan was a very good student, sat in the front row, paid attention, frequently emailed with course questions. The president of an organization called the Asian American Civic Trust, a man named Dylan Wakayama, told The Los Angeles Times that Alan had tutored high school students who were members of the organization. Wakayama said the students described Alan as very intelligent, proficient in biology, proficient in math. In October of twenty twenty four, Alan donated twenty five dollars to a Democratic Party political action committee supporting Kamala Harris's presidential campaign. That is on file with the Federal Election Commission. And here's the part of the resume that nobody at C two Education or cal State Domingas Hills or the Asian American Civic Trust knew about.

15:16 In twenty twenty three, he bought a semi automatic pistol. In August of twenty twenty five, he bought the shotgun he allegedly used Saturday night. Both purchases were legal. He had no criminal record. He passed the background checks at some point in the past several months. Investigators are still working backwards on the timeline he made a decision. He bought a one way train ticket from Los Angeles to Chicago and from Chicago to Washington, DC. He took several days to make the cross country trip by rail. He did not fly. Whether that was because he intended to bring the weapons with him and rail was easier, or whether it was for some other reason, I do not know.

15:57 He arrived in Washington and checked into the Washington Hilton on Friday, the day before the Correspondent's dinner. He stayed in a room on the tenth floor, and on Saturday night, at eight thirty six p m. Eastern, he came downstairs. This is a profile that law enforcement does not love. No criminal history, no flag behavior. A teacher, a tutor. People who knew him say he was intelligent, helped kids get into college, was active in his Christian fellowship in undergrad was building a video game in his spare time, the kind of person you do not see coming. And what investigators believe right now, and I want to stress this is preliminary. This is what Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told Meet the Press on Sunday morning, is that he made the decision quietly somewhere in his apartment in Torrance to ride for several days across the country, check into the most expensive hotel in the immediate vicinity of the Washington Power structure, and walk downstairs with two firearms and several knives because he won wanted to shoot people who work in the Trump administration. Cole Allen had been thinking about this. The shotgun he allegedly used Saturday was purchased in August of last year. That is eight months of having that weapon. Whatever the writing's investigators are now reading on his electronic devices show and we will get to those after the break. This was not a man who snapped on Saturday afternoon. This was someone who was building towards something in his own head for a while.

17:40 Here is what investigators are saying about motive. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche went on Meet the Press Sunday morning. He laid out the preliminary theory quote, it does appear that he did, in fact, set out to target folks who work in the administration, likely including the President and quote. That conclusion is based on two things, according to Blanche. The first is what Allan has told investigators directly. CBS News is reporting, citing law enforcement sources, that Allan told investigators after his arrest that he wanted to shoot administration officials, but he did not specify whether he was targeting Trump in particular, or whether he was targeting any specific person.

18:23 The second is what investigators are finding on his electronic devices in his hotel room on the tenth floor and at his parents' house in Torrance. They have his phone, they have his computer, They have what authorities are describing as writings. Blanche described social media activity that was, in his words, anti Trump in nature. He said the suspect is not cooperating fully. He said the firearms were purchased within the last couple of years. He said the investigation is his word fluid. The federal charges that have been filed so far two counts of using a firearm during a crime of violence, one count of assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon. The US Attorney for the District of Columbia, Janeine Piro said Saturday night that more charges are expected. The assault count carries up to twenty years, the weapons counts carry a minimum of ten years, and if the firearms were discharged in a crime of violence, and they were, life is on the table. Allan is scheduled to be arraigned today Monday in federal court. Now I want to pull on the historical thread because the location of this attack is not incidental. The Washington Hilton is the same hotel where John Hinckley Junior shot President Ronald Reagan on March thirtieth, nineteen eighty one. Hinckley fired six shots that day from a sidewalk outside the same building Cole Allen entered Saturday night. Reagan was hit survived.

19:48 Press Secretary James Brady was hit in the head and suffered permanent brain damage. Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy was hit. DC police officer Thomas Delahanty was hit. The Brady Bill is named after the Press secretary. The shooting changed federal firearms law in this country. It changed how the Secret Service does presidential movements. It is one of the defining political violence moments of the late twentieth century, and forty five years later, almost to the month, somebody walked into the same building with a shotgun looking for the president. That is not a coincidence. I can prove was deliberate on Cole Allen's part. The investigation has not made that connection publicly. But it is the same hotel, it is the same chain of events. It is by any measure, a building that ought to be near the top of the list when you are planning security for an event that is going to put the President of the United States and most of his cabinet in one room Saturday night, The Secret Service Director Sean Curran said the security plan worked.

20:50 He said the multi layered protection performed exactly as designed. The interim DC Metropolitan Police Chief Jeffrey Carroll agreed. The Service Deputy Director Matthew Quinn called Allan, in his words, a coward who attempted to create a national tragedy and was stopped at first contact. All of that is technically true. The shooter never reached the ballroom. The president was not hit, the cabinet was not hit, the Vice President was not hit, the journalists were not hit. The agent who took the round in the vest is going to recover. But the man who allegedly tried to do this got into the hotel a full day before the event. He got into a room on the tenth floor. He stayed there. He came down a stairwell with a shotgun openly in his hand.

21:35 He got within feet of the door of the ballroom where the President of the United States was sitting before anybody stopped him. The metal detectors he ran past were already being disassembled because the screening period had concluded for the evening. There are going to be questions about that. There should be questions about that. The Secret Service is going to answer those questions internally and probably publicly, and they should look. I am going to be honest with you. There are things we do not know yet about Saturday night, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. We do not know exactly what is in the writings the FBI is reading on Cole Allen's laptop right now. We do not know whether he had a specific person in mind, or whether he was just going to shoot whoever he could see when the door opened. We do not know what he is going to plead at the arraignment in federal court today or what additional charges are coming, or whether he will start cooperating. There are reporters in this town doing their jobs right now to find that out, and we will tell you what they find when they find it. What I can tell you is this. A Secret Service agent went to work on Saturday night in Washington, DC, and at some point during dinner service, while the presidential motor kaide was outside and a ballroom of twenty six hundred guests was sitting down, that agent had to draw his weapon and engage a man with a shotgun about ten feet from the door of the room where the President of the United States was sitting. He took around to the vest. He is going to be okay because

23:07 the vest worked. The man with the shotgun never reached the ballroom. The president never reached the floor, the Vice president never reached the floor, the cabinet never reached the floor. Twoy six hundred guests went home shaken but alive. Three times now in less than two years. The people whose entire professional life is making sure the President of the United States does not get shot have done exactly that against three different people in three different states, with three different weapons. Butler Pennsylvania, West Palm Beach, Florida, Washington, DC. The Secret Service is taking institutional hits for plenty of other things lately, and some of those hits are deserved.

23:48 We're going to be honest about that. But Saturday night they did exactly what they exist to do. The agent in the vest gets to go home. The thing nobody at any of these dinners or rallied or golf courses or checkpoints should have to think about is whether this is the time the system fails. We are now in a period in this country where political violence, actual weapons, drawn gunfire exchange, political violence aimed at the most protected human being in the world is a regular feature of presidential life. That is not normal. That is not how this is supposed to work. And every time it happens, we say we are going to have a national conversation about it, and then a few news cycles go by, and the conversation ends, and then it happens again. There is a playbook for this, and the playbook ends with a teacher named Cole Allen, a man who tutored kids on weekends, who composed the soundtrack to his own video game, sitting in a federal holding cell tonight while investigators read his journal. Tomorrow we will be back to the regular schedule.

24:51 The trials are still moving, the cases we follow on this show are still happening. Tuesday show is going to be the one I had built for today. I'm gar at Fischer. This was Daily Crime and Justice. Take care of yourselves. Disclaimer. The information in this episode reflects what was publicly available as of recording on Sunday afternoon, April twenty six, twenty twenty six. Cole Thomas Allen has been charged but not convicted. He has presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. The motive described in this episode that the suspect was targeting members of the Trump administration was characterized by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's preliminary and the investigation is ongoing. Some early reporting attributed additional ideological characterizations to authorities that we were not able to corroborate from multiple major outlets, and we have not repeated those characterizations on air. Allen's arraignment was scheduled for the day this episode aired, and any plea additional charges or new disclosures from federal prosecutors that occurred between recording and airtime will be addressed in subsequent episodes.

26:03 Daily Crime and Justice is a production of Caloroga Shark Media. If you appreciate the show, please subscribe, rate, and review wherever you get your podcasts. We will see you tomorrow.