"Pedophile, rapist, and traitor": authorities investigate letter allegedly written by Trump's attacker

Barcelona"I am no longer willing to allow a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to stain my hands with his crimes." This is what Colle Allen, the man who shot at the press dinner with Trump, would have written in a letter published by the New York Post. For now, authorities have not yet verified it, and Trump has used it to claim that the alleged shooter was motivated by "hatred of Christians". The administration is already investigating the writing, according to the New York Times through two police agents who request anonymity.

In the writing, Allen expresses rejection of various actions by the U.S. government, such as assaults in detention centers, extrajudicial executions in the Pacific and Caribbean, or Washington's military actions against third countries. The attacker, a computer scientist graduated from the California Institute of Technology, is in police custody and has undergone a psychiatric examination. He is expected to appear before a federal court in Washington D.C. on Monday. The FBI has already searched his home in California.

"Turning the other cheek is not Christian"

"I am not a woman raped in a detention center. I am not a fisherman executed without trial. I am not a schoolboy blown up, nor a hungry infant, nor a teenager abused by the many criminals of this administration," states the letter, in which Allen says he is acting on behalf of all those affected by the policies and actions of the U.S. government. "Turning the other cheek when someone else is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity with the crimes of the oppressor." According to this text, the target was not only Donald Trump, but also all public officials, "prioritizing from the highest office to the lowest." In fact, the acting Attorney General of the United States, Todd Blanche, has said in various interviews this Sunday that investigators suspect the target was not only the American president, but also the people working in the administration.

To reduce risks to staff who are in the room but do not hold any public office, Allen explains that he will use pellets instead of bullets. Even so, he bothers all attendees for having chosen to be part of an event headed by "a pedophile, rapist, and traitor." Without naming him directly, Allen refers to Trump on several occasions with these three adjectives. And he warns the dinner attendees that they are "accomplices" of the U.S. president.

A relative's warning

According to NBC, Allen sent the letter to family members minutes before taking action. Still according to this outlet's version, one of the relatives who received the message alerted the Connecticut police. But it was of little use, because Allen managed to enter the hotel and bypass security, even though they managed to immobilize him before he reached the room where the dinner was being held. The shots heard occurred far from the diners and Trump.

The issue of security also appears in Allen's letter. "I expected security cameras on every corner, hotel rooms with hidden microphones, armed guards every three meters, metal detectors everywhere," says Allen, who claims he hasn't seen "a single damn security measure." "Not in transport. Not in the hotel. Not at the event," he lists. "The event security is all outside, focused on the protesters," he says, and assures that his feeling is that "no one has thought about what happens if someone checks in [at the hotel where the dinner was held] the day before," as he himself did. Even so, when he tried to bypass security, he was neutralized and the attack was thwarted.

"You are a disgrace"

At the time of the events, after the shots fired outside the room where the dinner was being held, security personnel evacuated the main authorities from the premises. The first to leave the stage from which Trump was about to give his speech was Vice President J.D. Vance. The US President, however, remained for 10 to 15 seconds observing the situation. "I wanted to know what was happening," he said tonight in an interview on CBS's 60 minutes program.

When the agents tried to escort him away, Trump said he wanted to walk out, as he explained in the interview. "I didn't want to draw attention. I had already gone halfway when they told me: 'Please, get down on the floor. Please, get down on the floor.' So I dropped." Trump, who said he thought "a tray of dishes had fallen to the floor," also assured that he was not worried about the possibility of injuries: "I understand life in this crazy world."

During the interview on CBS, a tense moment occurred. The presenter, Norah O'Donnell, read fragments of the text in which Allen accuses Trump of being a "rapist" and a "pedophile," a fact that angered Trump. The US President, who on Saturday was attending a dinner with journalists, whom he often insults, and whom he has taken to court on various occasions, reacted by calling the media workers "horrible people" and attacked the interviewer: "You are a disgrace."