What we know about suspected gunman in shooting outside White House Correspondents’ Dinner

WASHINGTON — Details are beginning to emerge about the suspect who opened fire outside the White House Correspondents’ Dinner while President Donald Trump and other top administration officials were attending the event. 

In a surveillance video posted on social media by Trump shortly after the event, a person can be seen rushing past Secret Service agents down a hallway, before the agents turn and raise their guns at him. 

In several follow-up photos, Trump posted images of a man he said was the suspect, seemingly shirtless and lying handcuffed on the floor of the hotel. 

The shooting suspect was identified as Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, two law enforcement officials told the Associated Press.

“The man has been captured,” Trump said at a White House press briefing shortly after the incident. 

At the briefing Saturday night, Trump said the man charged a security checkpoint in front of the ballroom where the dinner was being held, while armed with multiple weapons, including a shotgun, handgun and knives. 

Jeffery W. Carroll, the Interim Chief of Police of the Metropolitan Police Department, said preliminary evidence shows the suspect was a guest at the hotel where the dinner was being held. 

The identity of the man has not yet officially been released by authorities. Trump claimed the man is a California resident and that and law enforcement officials were headed to his apartment. 

“He’s a very sick person,” Trump said. 

Trump and other top United States leaders were evacuated from an annual dinner of White House correspondents Saturday night after a shooting inside the hotel where the event was taking place, federal authorities confirmed. 

The Secret Service said in a statement there was a shooting “near the main magnetometer screening area” of the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C. and that one person was in custody, but their condition wasn’t known. The shooting occurred outside the ballroom where the event happened, not in the same room.

The Secret Service and other authorities flooded the banquet hall as guests hid under tables after the bangs. “Out of the way, sir!” someone yelled. Others yelled to duck, according to the Associated Press.

“The president and the first lady are safe along all protectees,” Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi wrote in a statement. “Law enforcement is actively assessing the situation.”

Multiple news agencies reported a law enforcement officer took a shot to the vest, but is expected to be OK. Weijia Jiang, White House Correspondents’ Association President confirmed there were no injuries after the incident. 

At the Saturday press conference, Trump said he had spoken with the officer who had been shot, a Secret Service agent he described as being “in very high spirits.” 

“One officer was shot but saved by the fact that he was wearing very obviously a very good bulletproof vest,” Trump said. 

Generally, the Hilton hotel, where the dinner has taken place for years, remains open to regular guests during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and security has typically been focused on the ballroom and rather than the hotel at large, with little screening for people not entering the dinner itself. In past years, that has created openings for disruptions in the lobby and other public spaces, including protests in which security moved to remove guests who unfurled banners or staged demonstrations.

Trump has already survived multiple assassination attempts. In the first, he was grazed by a bullet in an assassination attempt during an election campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he was shot in the ear.

The shooter in that incident was shot by a Secret Service sniper protecting then-candidate Trump. 

In a second incident later that year, a man camped out in the bushes near where Trump was golfing with a rifle. After Secret Service agents scared him off, he ran but was later arrested and convicted. 

At the man’s trial, a Secret Service agent helping protect Trump on the golf course testified that he spotted the would-be assassin before Trump came into view. The shooter aimed his rifle at the agent, who opened fire, causing him to drop his weapon and run away without firing a shot.

Krys Shahin contributed to this report.