WHCD Shooting Suspect Identified as Calif. Teacher, Appears to Have Targeted Trump and Admin Members: Officials

Last night’s shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner appeared targeted at President Donald Trump and his administration, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told CNN Sunday morning.

"We’re still looking to try to understand a motive. From our preliminary investigation, it does appear the suspect was targeting members of the administration,” Blanche said. “We don’t have specifics yet about particular members of the administration, except that we do understand that that was his goal and his target."

Authorities have identified the shooting suspect as Cole Tomas Allen, 31, from Torrance, Calif. Allen graduated in 2017 with an engineering degree from the California Institute of Technology, the school confirmed to CBS News in an email. Per the suspect's LinkedIn profile, he is a self-employed video game developer and part-time teacher.

Allen worked for a tutoring firm based in Torrance called C2 Education, according to law enforcement. The Torrance Unified School District told CBS the suspect was never a teacher in its district.

"At this point, it does appear he is a lone actor, a lone gunman," Jeff Carroll, interim chief of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, said during a Saturday night press conference.

Allen allegedly charged at a Secret Service checkpoint with multiple weapons, firing shots — one of which hit a Secret Service member in his bullet proof vest — before he was tackled and taken into custody. Allen was armed with a shotgun, handgun, and knives, according to Carroll.

"From what we know from video surveillance and from witnesses who were there, (he) barely got past the perimeter," Blanche said. "He was immediately subdued, and, yes, he got off a couple shots."

United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said Allen will face multiple charges.

When asked if last night's shooting was a security failure, Blanche pushed back, touting the Secret Service's efforts as a success story.

"The goal is not expected to stop every single thing, it’s to create a very safe and very secure environment, which is what happened last night," Blanche said. "Make no mistake about it, the Secret Service did their jobs last night."

Allen allegedly bought his firearms legally in 2023 and 2025, according to a law-enforcement official. He was not previously on law enforcement's radar and every guest in the hotel was checked via a government database, the official said.

Republican Representative Mike Lawler (R., N.Y.) told CNN security was inadequate, and it "shouldn't even have come to that," also calling for a full funding of the Department of Homeland Security since the agency has been shut down since mid-February.

"Having attended a lot of events — and certainly having attended events with the president and cabinet — [security was] woefully insufficient when you’re talking about that many people getting into a room of that size," Lawler said.

Dinner was never served last night after shots rang out at the Washington Hilton hotel. The president had been seated for about five minutes when shots could be heard from outside the ballroom. Trump and his cabinet were rushed out of the dinner by Secret Service.

In light of Saturday night's incident, Trump posted to Truth Social, pushing for his White House ballroom to be completed, noting the shooting "would have never happened" if the dinner was held on White House grounds.

"What happened last night is exactly the reason that our great Military, Secret Service, Law Enforcement and, for different reasons, every President for the last 150 years, have been DEMANDING that a large, safe, and secure Ballroom be built ON THE GROUNDS OF THE WHITE HOUSE," Trump posted on Truth Social Sunday.

"It cannot be built fast enough! While beautiful, it has every highest level security feature there is plus, there are no rooms sitting on top for unsecured people to pour in, and is inside the gates of the most secure building in the World, The White House."

The dinner was ultimately postponed per law enforcement protocol, although the president pushed for the event to continue following Saturday night's shooting. The president and the press reconvened at the White House where he briefed the pool on the shooting.

"First Lady, plus the Vice President, and all Cabinet members, are in perfect condition," Trump told the press Saturday night. "We’re not going to let anybody take over our society. We’re not going to cancel things out because we can’t do that. We wanted to stay tonight. I will tell you I fought like hell to stay, but they — it was protocol."

This was the first time the president attended the WCHD, after boycotting the event throughout his first term. Other administration officials in attendance included Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as well as 2,600 other attendees, including journalists, politicians, and celebrities.

Many of the event's afterparties continued as planned, in an attempt to be a landing pad for shaken attendees. NBC, MS NOW and Time magazine all elected to continue with their events as planned. CNN will also hold its final reception at the British Embassy.

Trump posted to Truth Social Saturday night, saying the event will be rescheduled within 30 days.

White House Correspondents’ Association President Weija Jiang echoed similar sentiments after announcing last night's event was canceled, noting security protocol.

"Thank God everybody is safe. And thank you for coming together tonight," Jiang said. "We will do this again. Thank you.”