A 31-year-old Torrance man who allegedly shot a Secret Service agent at a hotel in the nation’s capital where President Donald Trump was about to address the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was charged Monday with attempting to assassinate the president and other federal counts.
Cole Tomas Allen — who is also a Caltech graduate and former intern at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena — was also accused of transportation of a firearm and ammunition through interstate commerce to commit a felony and discharging a firearm during a violent crime.
The assassination charge alone could result in a sentence of life in prison, officials said.
Allen made his first court appearance Monday in Washington, D.C. He is due back in court for a bail hearing Thursday, and at a preliminary hearing tentatively set for May 11 a judge determines if the amount of evidence warrants a trial.
Federal officials said Allen allegedly sent family members in Southern California a manifesto railing against the Trump administration moments before opening fire during the Saturday evening event.
The shooting around 5:40 p.m. California time Saturday occurred in a ballroom of the Washington Hilton, the same hotel where President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. Video from a hotel surveillance camera showed a man attempting to sprint past the security checkpoint, prompting several officers to draw their guns. The suspect never made it into the main ballroom where the Correspondents’ Dinner was being held one floor below, but he shot one Secret Service agent who was saved by a bullet-proof vest, acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said.
Blanche said law enforcement officers fired an estimated five shots at the suspect. The officers’ gunfire did not hit the assailant, but he fell to the ground and was arrested.
No one was injured in the alleged attack. U.S. Secret Service agents rushed Trump and first lady Melania Trump out of the hotel and back to the White House. Vice President JD Vance was also rushed out.
Authorities said the suspect was carrying a 12 gauge pump-action shotgun, a .38-caliber semiautomatic handgun, at least three knives “and all kinds of paraphernalia.”
A “manifesto,” which the FBI said was recovered during a search of his parents’ home in Torrance where Allen lives, made his objectives clear — “I am targeting administration officials. They are my targets and I’m prioritizing from the top down.”
According to published reports, Allen sent his manifesto to family members minutes before the incident at the Correspondents’ Dinner, referring to himself as the “Friendly Federal Assassin” and saying he was trying to kill members of the Trump administration.
“Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed. I’m not the person raped in a detention camp. I’m not the fisherman executed without trial. I’m not a schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration,” Allen wrote. “Turning the other cheek when `someone else’ is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.”
According to his LinkedIn profile, Allen has worked part-time since March 2020 at C2 Education, a Torance-based private company that prepares students for college entrance exams and provides tutoring services. The company’s social media accounts show Allen was teacher of the month in December 2024.
Allen identified himself on LinkedIn as a “self-employed” indie game developer, having apparently released on Steam an “atomic fighting game” in 2018 called Bohrdom, which was advertised using accounts on YouTube and Twitter.
Allen has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Caltech in 2017, according to his LinkedIn account, and a 2025 master’s in computer science from Cal State Dominguez Hills.
NASA confirmed that Allen was an intern Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena in 2014.
Shortly after being evacuated from the ballroom, Trump took to social media to recount the event.
“Quite an evening in D.C.,” the president wrote on X. “Secret Service and law enforcement did a fantastic job … The shooter has been apprehended.” He said he recommended that the show go on but it was up to law enforcement, and the dinner was canceled.
After being returned to the White House, Trump stood behind a podium and made a public address before taking questions. Among his comments, he said he saw “a tremendous amount of love and coming together” in the ballroom when the shots were first heard, before he was rushed from the scene. “I heard a noise. I thought it was a tray going down. It was a gun,” the president posted.
“He was like a blur on tape. They didn’t let him get through,” Trump added. He said one Secret Service agent was shot but was saved because he was “wearing a very good bullet-proof vest.” The president said, “He’s doing great. Great shape. Very high spirits.”
Law enforcement performed “exactly as they were supposed to,” he said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom posted on X to say he was “relieved everyone at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is safe tonight based on initial reports. A free press is foundational to our country. Violence is never acceptable.”
California Republican Party Chairwoman Corrin Rankin also issued a statement, condemning repeated instances of politically related violence.
“The attempted assassination of President Trump and mass shooting [near] other guests at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was a terrible act of violence,” Rankin said. “This violence must stop now. Democrats must end their violent rhetoric; their words have consequences and are causing real harm.
“The assassination of Charlie Kirk and the multiple assassination attempts on President Trump’s life prove that violent rhetoric is creating a deadly environment. The California GOP stands with President Trump and every victim of political violence.”
Video of the incident at the Correspondents’ Dinner is available online.