What happened?<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump was being entertained at his table, along with first lady Melania Trump and his press secretary Karoline Leavitt, when shots were heard shortly after 8:30pm, Washington time.<\/p>\n
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According to Mr Trump, the suspect “charged a security checkpoint with multiple weapons” then started running toward the ballroom where the US president was seated.<\/p>\n
“He was fast. He was like a blur on tape,” Mr Trump said at a press conference from the White House, after the incident.<\/p>\n
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Authorities said the suspect was armed with a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives.<\/p>\n
“The individual charged a checkpoint with a firearm in his hand,” Metro Police Department Interim Chief Jeffery Carroll said at a press conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We know he was running in the direction of the ballroom that the president was in, as well as other cabinet members.”<\/p>\n
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The man was apprehended by Secret Service agents before he made it to the ballroom.<\/p>\n
The US attorney for DC, Jeanine Pirro, said it was another checkpoint right outside the ballroom that saved the people inside.<\/p>\n
“Because that checkpoint worked, there was no one who was injured [in the ballroom],” she said.<\/p>\n
![\"Guests](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/d47dd375dba915c02e4f856de7966e95.jpeg\")
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Those in the room were ordered to “get down” and tried to hide under tables. (Reuters: Evan Vucci)<\/p>\n
Was anyone hurt?<\/p>\n
A uniformed Secret Service agent was shot during the incident, officials say, but no other injuries were reported.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump said the agent was “shot from very close distance with a very powerful gun” but was saved by his bulletproof vest.<\/p>\n
“I just spoke to the officer and he’s doing great,” the US president said at the press conference shortly after the incident. “He’s in great shape.”<\/p>\n
The agent was taken to the hospital for an evaluation, but was not hit by a bullet, police said.<\/p>\n
What do we know about the suspect?<\/p>\n
US media outlets, including the New York Times and the Associated Press, have identified the shooter as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, of Torrance in Los Angeles County. Police have not formally named him yet.<\/p>\n
Social media sites show him to be a Caltech graduate working as a part-time teacher and game developer.<\/p>\n
Officials say it is believed he was acting alone.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Donald Trump posted a picture of the suspected shooter on social media. (Truth Social: @realDonaldTrump)<\/p>\n
Police believe the man was registered as a guest at the Washington Hilton, but are still investigating the full circumstances, Mr Carroll said.<\/p>\n
“We’re very early in the investigation, so we’ll have to determine \u2026 how the gun got in, how it got down here,” he told reporters.<\/p>\n
Mr Carroll said the FBI was still examining evidence from the scene, including shell casings, but believed the suspect fired a shot.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump posted a photo of him shortly after his arrest to his Truth Social platform.<\/p>\n
What happens next?<\/p>\n
Ms Pirro said so far, the suspect was being charged with two offences:<\/p>\n
using a firearm during a crime of violence and,assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon.<\/p>\n
She added that it was a “fluid situation” and there would be “many more charges to come”.<\/p>\n
“It is clear, based upon what we know so far, that this individual was intent on doing as much harm and as much damage as he could,” she said.<\/p>\n
The suspect is in police custody and will be arraigned on Monday, local time, in the federal district court, Ms Pirro said.<\/p>\n
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Mr Carroll said FBI agents were still examining evidence at the Washington Hilton hotel, and Mr Trump said agents had already started searching the suspect’s apartment in California.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the US president said he intends to eventually give his speech, despite the incident.<\/p>\n
The event will be rescheduled for some point in the next 30 days, he said.<\/p>\n
“I am ready, willing and able,” he said, flagging that he may tone down what he had intended to say to the press in tonight’s address.<\/p>\n
“I was all set to really rip it \u2026 I don’t know if I can ever be as rough as I was going to be tonight. I think I’m going to be probably very nice.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Californian man is facing “many” charges after trying to storm an event hosting Donald Trump, armed with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2490,177748,43,21845,52955,44,40167,5637,49706,4905,41,39,42,40,3281,1055,2489,20291,19542,304487],"class_list":{"0":"post-632097","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-evacuation","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-jd-vance","12":"tag-melania-trump","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-president","15":"tag-republican","16":"tag-shooter","17":"tag-shooting","18":"tag-top-news","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topnews","21":"tag-topstories","22":"tag-trump","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-us-president","26":"tag-white-house","27":"tag-white-house-correspondents-dinner"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}