{"id":552218,"date":"2026-04-26T20:43:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T20:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/552218\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T20:43:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T20:43:10","slug":"trump-and-officials-likely-targets-of-press-dinner-shooting-suspect-authorities-believe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/552218\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump and officials &#8216;likely&#8217; targets of press dinner shooting suspect, authorities believe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Officials said law enforcement exchanged fire with the alleged attacker and intercepted him, and &#8220;believe&#8221; the suspect fired his weapon. He was not struck, but was taken to hospital for evaluation. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Police said he was carrying two guns, as well as knives. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Investigators are reviewing writings from the suspect, which state he wanted to specifically target administration officials, a senior US official told CBS News.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">One of Allen&#8217;s family members alerted police after receiving writings from him before the attack. The writings sent to family members reportedly did not specifically mention the White House Correspondents&#8217; Dinner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">An officer who was shot and injured during the incident has been discharged from hospital. His bullet proof vest &#8220;helped us avoid a potential tragedy,&#8221; the Secret Service&#8217;s chief of communications, Anthony Guglielmi, told the BBC.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Several BBC reporters were in attendance at the dinner, and described scenes of widespread confusion following the sound of gunshots.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Gary O&#8217;Donoghue, the BBC&#8217;s Chief North America correspondent, said he heard &#8220;booming sounds&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Within moments, I thought \u2013 that is the low thudding sound that semi-automatic weapons make,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The room was briefly locked down, before an announcement was made that the event would be rescheduled and attendees were ushered out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Blanche told the BBC&#8217;s US partner CBS News that investigators believe the suspect travelled to the capital by train &#8211; from Los Angeles to Chicago, before heading to DC.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Allen describes himself as a mechanical engineer, game developer and teacher on LinkedIn. He is from Torrance, California, where an address believed to be linked to him is being searched. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He will be formally charged in federal court on Monday with assault of a federal officer and using a firearm during a crime of violence, officials said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Officials said law enforcement exchanged fire with the alleged attacker and intercepted him, and &#8220;believe&#8221; the suspect fired&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-552218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}