{"id":210419,"date":"2026-04-26T17:44:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T17:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/210419\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T17:44:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T17:44:21","slug":"whcd-shooting-suspect-cole-allen-was-targeting-trump-officials-in-attack-on-ballroom-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/210419\/","title":{"rendered":"WHCD shooting suspect Cole Allen was targeting Trump officials in attack on ballroom, officials say"},"content":{"rendered":"

The gunman who charged a security checkpoint and opened fire outside the\u00a0White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner gunman<\/a>\u00a0was targeting Trump officials Saturday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cole Tomas Allen, 31,<\/a>\u00a0told police he was going after \u201cadministration officials\u201d\u00a0at the press gala<\/a>\u00a0inside the Washington Hilton hotel in Washington, DC, sources told The Post.<\/p>\n

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed the alleged motive to\u00a0NBC News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Suspected gunman Cole Allen is detained on the ground in the lobby of the Washington Hilton hotel on April 25, 2026. truthsocial\/realDonaldTrump<\/p>\n

Allen wasn\u2019t\u00a0targeting anyone in particular, and officials aren\u2019t yet sure if he was trying to kill President Trump specifically, sources said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was trying to just breach his way in and take whoever he could,\u201d one law enforcement source told The Post.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Secret Service Deputy Director Matthew Quinn said the shooter was trying to carry out a \u201cnational tragedy\u201d while all eyes were on the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Allen] underestimated the protective capabilities of the U.S. Secret Service, and was stopped at first contact. The strength of our layered security posture was evident, with a myriad of countermeasures ahead,\u201d he wrote in a\u00a0statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Allen, a CalTech-educated teacher from Torrance, Calif., was identified by sources as the suspect accused of rushing a security checkpoint armed with a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives before he was subdued.<\/p>\n

Secret Service agents rush President Donald Trump off the dais after a shooting inside the Washington Hilton hotel on April 25, 2026. REUTERS<\/p>\n

The\u00a0shooting erupted just after 8:30 p.m.,<\/a>\u00a0about 20 minutes after Trump and first lady Melania Trump had just made their grand entrance onto the dais.<\/p>\n

Officials have not revealed a possible motive behind the shooting.<\/p>\n

Follow The Post\u2019s live updates on the shooting at the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner<\/a><\/p>\n

Trump said he didn\u2019t believe the gunman\u2019s attack was related to the ongoing US-Israeli war in Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not going to deter me from winning the war in Iran. I don\u2019t know if that had anything to do with it. I really don\u2019t think so, based on what we know,\u201d Trump told reporters at the White House on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n

The New York Post front cover for April 26, 2026.<\/p>\n

A Secret Service agent was shot in the vest during the gunfight.<\/p>\n

The unidentified agent was rushed to a hospital and is in \u201cgreat spirits,\u201d Trump said during a press conference at the White House Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Allen, an\u00a0engineering\u00a0grad, has been charged with using a firearm during a crime of violence and with assault of a federal officer, Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, said Saturday.<\/p>\n

The crazed gunman attempted to barge into the ballroom of approximately 2,500 people,\u00a0which included the first couple,\u00a0<\/a>Vice President JD Vance, Trump cabinet members and journalists.<\/p>\n

Security footage captured the moment a gunman raced past law enforcement officials during the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner on April 25, 2026. Donald Trump\/Truth Social<\/p>\n

Secret Service agents whisked away the president and first lady as other guests took cover underneath their tables.<\/p>\n

Allen appeared to gain entry into the hotel by paying for a room and smuggled a cache of weapons inside, officials said. A volunteer told The Post that they saw him\u00a0assemble a long weapon \u201cin [an] unsecured room\u201d<\/a>\u00a0before making a mad dash towards the ballroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Follow the latest on the shooting at the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner:<\/p>\n

Authorities seized a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives when they nabbed Allen.<\/p>\n

Speaking on \u201cFox News Sunday,\u201d Blanche said Allen took a cross-country train to get to the gala, originating in Los Angeles and traveling through Chicago before ending up in DC.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump holds a press conference at the White House on April 25, 2026. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Host Shannon Bream noted that Americans rarely take such lengthy trips by train, and surmised he may have avoided air travel to sidestep tracking methods and security procedures, and asked whether his choice raised any red flags.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, look, you can travel by plane, car, or train. And it appears he traveled by train. Why he did that, we don\u2019t know at this point. But it could be the reasons you just described. It could be other reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said investigators were combing through clues contained in \u201cemails\u201d they obtained after executing multiple search warrants in LA, Allen\u2019s room at the Washington Hilton and a number of his electronic devices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s things we\u2019re looking through right now to help us understand what his motivation was to the extent that it\u2019s written down somewhere,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Blanche said although the Justice Department didn\u2019t yet know if Allen was in possession of the firearms while in transit \u2014 he conceded speculatively \u201cthat could be another reason why he traveled by train, because he had those firearms with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shooter \u2014 blasted by Trump as a \u201csick\u201d individual \u2013 was swiftly taken down in the lobby by the Secret Service.<\/p>\n

He was hauled off from the hotel in the back of an ambulance.<\/p>\n

Trump assured that the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner will be rescheduled within the next 30 days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The gunman who charged a security checkpoint and opened fire outside the\u00a0White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner gunman\u00a0was targeting Trump…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[83162,153,9,11,10,3980,58,8093,5561,83124],"class_list":{"0":"post-210419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-2026-white-house-correspondents-dinner-shooting","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-news","13":"tag-shootings","14":"tag-us-news","15":"tag-washington-dc","16":"tag-white-house","17":"tag-white-house-correspondents-dinner"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}