WASHINGTON — The man suspected of opening fire at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday has been identified as a 31-year-old male from Southern California, authorities said.
The suspect was officially identified as Cole Allen from Torrance, California. According to law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation, the suspect is believed to have booked a room in the Hilton in early April.
He is declining to answer questions but allegedly made some reference to targeting administration officials but was not specific, the officials said.
Allen, armed with a shotgun, handgun, and multiple knives, rushed a security checkpoint and sprinted toward the ballroom where the dinner was being held, according to Jeff Carroll, the interim police chief for the Metropolitan Police Department.
The suspect was unharmed, while a Secret Service officer was struck in his bulletproof vest but is expected to survive, authorities reported. The officer was released from a local hospital early Sunday, according to a source.
Allen, as per his LinkedIn profile, graduated from California Institute of Technology (Caltech), a private research university in Pasadena, California, in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. Caltech confirmed the existence of a student named Cole Allen who graduated in 2017.
The LinkedIn profile indicates he obtained his masters of Science degree in computer science from California State University, Dominguez Hills in May 2025.
After graduating from Caltech, Allen spent a year working as a mechanical engineer before transitioning into independent video game development. Allen also took on a part-time teaching role at a company that assists high school students in securing college admissions, as per the information provided in Allen’s LinkedIn profile.
Officers from multiple law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and members of a SWAT team, were gathering late on Saturday near an address in Torrance, California, thought to be associated with the suspect.
