{"id":298746,"date":"2026-05-04T05:19:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T05:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/298746\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T05:19:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T05:19:25","slug":"trump-assassination-case-cole-allen-lawyer-seeks-end-to-suicide-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/298746\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump assassination case: Cole Allen lawyer seeks end to suicide watch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An attorney for Cole Tomas Allen<\/a> is seeking the removal of suicide precautions while the Torrance man remains jailed on charges of attempting to kill President Trump.<\/p>\n

In a motion filed Saturday in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, federal public defender A.J. Kramer argued that Allen is being unlawfully punished by his continued confinement in a padded cell despite multiple assessments that found no indications of suicide risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Allen is forced to be escorted to the shower, strip searched when entering and exiting his cell, and wear a padded vest while inside,\u201d Kramer wrote. \u201cThese conditions are excessive restrictions on his liberty that serve no justifiable purpose and deprive Mr. Allen of dignity while incarcerated.\u201d<\/p>\n

A hearing on the motion is scheduled for noon Monday before U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui. A court filing says a representative from the Department of Corrections will appear at the hearing.<\/p>\n

Neither Kramer nor the Department of Justice responded to email questions Sunday.<\/p>\n

In his argument, Kramer cited case law finding that \u201cif a restriction or condition is not reasonably related to a legitimate goal \u2014 if it is arbitrary or purposeless,\u201d a court could infer it to be punishment that \u201cmay not constitutionally be inflicted\u201d on a detainee.<\/p>\n

Allen is being held in the District of Columbia jail prior to trial after agreeing to ongoing detention<\/a> during an April 28 hearing.<\/p>\n

According to the motion, Allen was assigned to a \u201csafe cell,\u201d defined as a padded room with constant lighting, and required to wear a vest \u201cakin to a straitjacket,\u201d to not leave the cell except for legal or medical visits and to be strip-searched upon entry and exit.<\/p>\n

During intake on April 27, Allen initially was advised he would be in a safe cell even though a member of the intake team \u201cdid not note any suicide risk factors,\u201d the motion said.<\/p>\n

He was assessed again the next day and, despite a second assessment finding no suicide risk factors, was upgraded to suicide \u201cwatch,\u201d with a requirement for dimmed lights and no access to phone calls or jail tablets to communicate with anyone outside the jail, according to the motion.<\/p>\n

Kramer wrote that he visited Allen on April 28 and was assured he would be placed in a regular cell by Thursday or Friday. The next day, a third assessment found no signs of suicide risk, but Allen was restored to suicide precaution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThough relatively less stringent than suicide watch, Mr. Allen was still not permitted to make phone calls to \u2014 or receive visits from \u2014 anyone outside of his legal team, have access to a jail tablet, or, except for legal visits or showers \u2014 which still must be done with an escort \u2014 spend time outside of his cell,\u201d Kramer wrote.<\/p>\n

As of Saturday, Kramer said, he still believed Allen was on suicide precaution.<\/p>\n

Allen faces a potential life sentence on the terrorism-related charge of trying to kill Trump. He also has been charged with two firearms violations for allegedly transporting two guns across state lines as he traveled to Washington by Amtrak train and allegedly discharging one of those firearms, a shotgun, during the incident.<\/p>\n

Authorities detained Allen after he sprinted past Secret Service agents at a checkpoint a floor above the ballroom where Trump and other administration officials were attending the annual White House Correspondents\u2019 Assn. dinner on April 25. According to prosecutors, he was armed with the shotgun, a pistol and various knives. He then fell to the floor and was subdued. <\/p>\n

Trump administration officials who were at the dinner, including acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche and Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for D.C., charged him swiftly \u2014 leaning heavily on an email Allen sent to family just as he was breaching event security, which Trump and others referred to as a \u201cmanifesto\u201d but which was titled \u201cApology and Explanation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An attorney for Cole Tomas Allen is seeking the removal of suicide precautions while the Torrance man remains…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[3659,20675,126553,4579,7084,126552,126548,48,52,51,47,50,49,8830,126551,126550,3020,711,126549,31760,558],"class_list":["post-298746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-allen","tag-april","tag-cole-allen-attorney","tag-district","tag-hearing","tag-jail-tablet","tag-kramer","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-motion","tag-mr-allen","tag-padded-cell","tag-president-trump","tag-suicide","tag-suicide-risk","tag-u-s-department","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}