Who is Cole Allen, the man who shot at the journalists' dinner with Trump?
This is a 31-year-old Californian teacher, who has been subdued and detained
BarcelonaDonald Trump was quick to show the face of the man who has burst in shooting in the anteroom where the President of the United States and other high authorities of the country were celebrating the traditional dinner of the correspondents who cover the news of the White House. Trump has posted on his social network the photograph of the man, already subdued by security agents and lying on the ground face down. The authorities have identified him as Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old resident of California. The police have deployed a huge security operation to search his home in Torrance, a small and quiet town in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, where neighbors could not believe that one of them had committed the attack. Trump explained that the authorities suspect he is "a lone wolf".
On social networks, the suspect presents himself as "a graduate mechanical and computer engineer, an independent game developer by experience, a teacher by birth". In statements to the newspaper Los Angeles Times, the president of the Asian American Civic Trust, Dylan Wakayama, detailed that Allen gave private lessons to several high school students from this non-profit organization to prepare them for exams. He also said that colleagues consider him a "very intelligent man, with great command of biology, mathematics and science," as well as "kind and calm." Regarding his professional career, the publication shows that he worked part-time in tutoring and preparing students and as a game developer. In one photograph he is seen very happy to have been named teacher of the month in December 2024.
The man studied at the California Institute of Technology (CalTech), a private university located in Pasadena. He later worked as a software developer for an educational application, and as a teacher since 2020, according to excerpts from his LinkedIn profile published on social networks and by various North American media. Furthermore, in 2025 Allen completed a master's degree in computer science from California State University, and completed summer internships when he had not yet graduated at NASA.
Staying at the hotel
The investigation has revealed that Allen traveled by train from California to Chicago, and then continued the journey to the North American capital. There he lodged as a guest at the Hotel Washington Hilton, where the annual correspondents' dinner was being held, which Trump was attending for the first time as President of the United States with the top brass of his administration. Curiously, fellow Republican Ronald Reagan was very seriously injured when he was shot as he was leaving this same hotel after giving a speech, in March 1981, when he had barely begun his term.
Last night [early morning in Catalonia], the now apprehended suspect entered armed with a shotgun and several knives, and fired at the agents guarding the entrance to the hall where hundreds of people were distracted by the first course of the dinner, presided over by Trump, the First Lady, Melania Trump, and Vice President J.D. Vance, who were evacuated safe and sound immediately after a few seconds of uncertainty.
Officer discharged
The same Trump, still dressed in formal attire and already at the White House podium, explained that the attacker shot at one of the agents, who is fine because the bulletproof vest stopped the impact. The police officer has already been discharged. He also indicated that, in the same way as many of the international journalists present in the room, he had initially mistaken the sound of the shots for the falling of food trays.
In his speech, Trump also thanked the swift action of the "brave" security agents, who subdued the shooter and immediately evacuated the enormous hotel room without anyone being injured. The president declared that his intention was to continue with the dinner, but they advised him against it for security reasons. However, he announced that the event, which he had boycotted until now due to his deteriorated relationship with many correspondents, whom he publicly despises and insults, will be repeated in the coming weeks.