Cole Thomas Allen, the suspect in the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting, is accused of traveling across the border by train and telling his family he was a “friendly federal assassin.”
WASHINGTON — He is a Caltech graduate and former Teacher of the Month. He created video games and developed a prototype emergency brake for a wheelchair.
Cole Thomas Allen, 31, is now the suspect in the April 25 shooting at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and is accused of traveling across the border by train and telling his family he was a “friendly federal assassin” targeting administration officials, according to authorities, including senior law enforcement officials.
“As for why I did this, I am a citizen of the United States. What my agents are doing reflects on me, and I will no longer allow pedophiles, rapists, and traitors to paint their crimes on my hands,” Allen wrote in a letter to his family, published by the New York Post and confirmed by USA TODAY.
Police said Allen took a train from Los Angeles, checked into a hotel in Washington, where the Black Tigers were being held, and opened fire outside a dinner attended by President Donald Trump and other federal officials.
The attack disrupted one of Washington’s major social events, which annually brings together the nation’s most powerful figures and the journalists who cover them. Security guards quickly whisked Mr. Trump, First Lady Melania Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance to safety as other guests in tuxedos and evening gowns ducked under tables for cover at the podium in the huge ballroom.
The day after the shooting, a team of about 12 people camped across the street from a beige two-story Torrance, Calif., home linked to Allen. Neighbors did not answer the door, but curious pedestrians slowed to get the camera’s view.
Vinh Tan, a professor of computer science at California State University, Dominguez Hills, told USA TODAY in an email that he took several classes with Allen while he was earning his master’s degree. He described him as a polite, soft-spoken, and attentive student who frequently emailed him with academic questions.
“I am very shocked to see this news,” Ms Tan wrote.
Police are currently looking into details about Allen and his motives. The FBI Los Angeles field office served a court-approved search warrant at Torrance’s home just hours after the shooting, FBI Los Angeles spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said. She did not comment on what was found in the home or how it was related to the suspect.
Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said the suspects appeared to be targeting Trump and members of his administration. Blanche said on “Fox News Sunday” and NBC News that investigators are looking into the suspect’s emails and other posts. He did not elaborate on what had been revealed so far.
Federal authorities lead investigation
The FBI is leading the criminal investigation and the Secret Service is focusing on the suspect’s behavioral profile, a senior law enforcement official briefed on the investigation on both coasts told USA TODAY. That includes what prompted the suspect, what brought him to Washington, and whether there are any copycats who might try to follow suit, as is often the case after presidential assassination attempts, officials said.
The Secret Service and other agencies that prepared the subpoena are focused on determining how the suspect booked a room at the Washington Hilton, less than three miles north of the White House, for the night of the annual dinner.
Allen sent a note to his family via text or email before the celebration, saying he intended to try to kill Trump administration officials, a senior law enforcement official told USA TODAY. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation, said authorities have already interviewed Allen’s brother and at least one other family member.
In a letter published by the New York Post that Allen planned to send minutes before the shooting, officials said, he outlined “goals” that included “administrative officials … being able to prioritize from highest to lowest.”
So far, one law enforcement official said, it’s not a single thing that’s unsettling the suspected shooter, but rather a confluence of circumstances, including the Iran war, domestic politics and the Trump administration’s stance on LGBTQ issues. The official told USA TODAY that the FBI discovered other writings by Allen that the agency is currently reviewing, including some in which he expressed sympathetic views on transgender issues.
Based on findings so far, authorities are broadening the pool of people interviewed to include more family members and Allen’s co-workers to build a comprehensive profile of the suspect, officials said.
The official said Allen did not specifically mention Trump by name in his book.
President Trump told Fox News that the suspect’s posts, reviewed by law enforcement, show him to be a “troublesome individual” motivated by religious hatred. Trump said his family had expressed concerns about him to law enforcement before the correspondents’ dinner shooting.
“If you read the manifesto, this man is a sick man,” Trump said. “He hates Christians, that’s for sure. He hates Christians, that’s hate.”
Allen’s social media footprint provides some insight into his background. When he donated $25 to then-Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, he listed his employment as a teacher. He is registered to vote in California with “no party preference.”
Allen posted on LinkedIn that he earned a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from California Institute of Technology in 2017 and a master’s degree in computer science from California State University, Dominguez Hills in 2025.
Caltech spokeswoman Kathy Svitil confirmed the records of an undergraduate named Cole Allen, who graduated in 2017, but declined to release further information.
California State University Dominguez Hills spokeswoman Lily McKibbin said the student, Cole Allen, will graduate with a master’s degree in 2025, but declined to confirm that he was the identified suspect in the shooting.
His LinkedIn profile shows he is an adjunct instructor at C2 Education, a national tutoring and college counseling provider in Torrance. In December 2024, C2 named him “Teacher of the Month” and posted a photo on the group’s social media.
Before taking that job, Allen listed his occupation as a self-employed video game developer. A PC game he developed was associated with his name and posted on Steam for download.
Before that, Allen said he worked as an engineer for Pasadena, Calif.-based IJK Controls for a year. Prior to that, he was a teaching assistant at the California Institute of Technology, according to his LinkedIn.
In 2017, Allen spoke to KABC-TV about a prototype he developed for emergency braking on wheelchairs.
“Wheelchair brakes tend to lock the wheels, but they don’t fix the chair to the ground. But with this device, you can prevent the chair from skidding at all,” he told the TV station.
Shooting raises security questions
The Washington shootings have also raised questions about whether more safety precautions should have been taken at dinner parties.
President Trump said at a White House press conference shortly after the shooting that the hotel was not a “particularly safe building” and that the lack of security underscored the need for plans to build a banquet hall on the White House grounds.
New York Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, who attended the dinner, told CNN that the hotel’s security measures were “woefully inadequate.”
Hotel management confirmed to USA TODAY that Allen had booked the room and was staying there the night of the event. The Secret Service, working with local police, conducted an on-site investigation of the vast complex and established a security perimeter to prevent suspicious persons from accessing the president and other VIP attendees.
By booking a hotel room, Allen had access to nearby high-profile events without a ticket. However, he still could not enter the ballroom area where the event was taking place. Only ticket holders could pass through the magnetometer to reach that point.
Authorities are not allowed to conduct background checks on everyone who was staying at the hotel on the night of the dinner unless they have reason to believe they are committing a crime or about to commit a crime, said a senior law enforcement official briefed on the investigation. The official cited privacy concerns and other legal restrictions.
On Saturday night, April 25, a security officer confronted the suspect in the lobby before he entered the Washington Hilton ballroom. The suspect was killed minutes before the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner began, but no one in the ballroom was injured. Police said the Secret Service agent was shot outside the banquet hall but survived because of the bulletproof vest he was wearing.
Criticism of the Secret Service’s efforts to secure the building was unwarranted, law enforcement officials said, given that the suspect was arrested shortly after sprinting through the magnetometer and that he never approached Trump or other VIPs at the banquet hall.
President Trump praised the Secret Service’s quick actions to stop the gunman from entering the banquet hall.
“They stopped him cold,” he said in an interview on Fox News.
Allen himself commented on hotel security in a letter published in the New York Post and seen by USA TODAY.
“I walked in with multiple weapons, and not one person considered me a potential threat,” he wrote, according to a letter published by the New York Post.
“Security for the event is all outside and focused on protesters and those currently arriving. No one seems to be thinking about what might happen if someone checked in the day before.”
Contributed by: Christopher Cann, Chris Kenning, Nick Penzenstadler, USA TODAY
