D.C. gala gunman wrote ‘manifesto,’ traveled from California before attack, officials say

Cole Tomas Allen, the suspected gunman who rattled Washington’s leaders by exchanging gunfire with officials just outside a press gala late Saturday, had made a long journey from Southern California and wrote a “manifesto” threatening Trump administration officials before the attack, officials said.

Allen, a 31-year-old Caltech graduate and high school tutor from Torrance, is believed to have taken a train first to Chicago and then to DC before checking into the Washington Hilton with two guns he had previously purchased, authorities said.

The attacker managed to bypass several layers of security at the White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner before being taken down by armed agents outside the ballroom where President Trump and an array of other top federal officials were seated.

Neither Allen nor a legal representative for him could be reached for comment Sunday.

According to Trump, Allen wrote a “manifesto” prior to the attack, and shared it with family. His brother flagged it to local law enforcement in New London, Conn., late Saturday. The New York Post reported that Allen described himself in the document as the “Friendly Federal Assassin” and revealed he intended to kill Trump administration officials.

New London Police Deputy Chief John Perry said that around 10:30 pm a man came to the lobby of the agency’s headquarters to report that he’d received a troubling email from Allen. The relative initially thought it was spam, but then saw the news of what had unfolded in DC and felt he needed to report it.

Perry would not say what was in the email, and did not know exactly what time it was sent, but said that the relative said he only saw and opened it around 10 pm “I think he was watching what was going on and kind of put 2 and 2 together and said, ‘I need to go to my local PD,’” Perry said.

Police officials provided the email to the Secret Service and FBI, he said. Trump, who like other top officials was escorted from the ballroom unharmed, said the document would be released, but it had not been released as of Sunday.

One officer was shot during the incident at “close distance with a very powerful gun,” but saved by his ballistic vest and was in “great shape” and “high spirits” afterwards, Trump said late Saturday. The president called the suspect a “thug that attacked our constitution.”

Jeanine Pirro, the top federal prosecutor in DC, said the suspect faces two criminal charges of using a firearm in a violent crime and assaulting a federal officer using a dangerous weapon. Officials said that more charges could follow and that an initial court appearance is likely Monday.

Late Saturday, both local and federal law enforcement, including the FBI, swarmed the Torrance residence where Allen is believed to have lived with his family, with officers clearing the road and stringing police tape along part of the street. A man who responded to a knock on the front door said, “Not right now,” and declined to comment further.

The thwarted attack marked the latest in a string of incidents in which gunmen have gotten dangerously close to Trump, renewing questions about the safety and security of the president at a time of intense political division at home and raging conflicts abroad.

Trump was grazed on the ear by a bullet at a presidential campaign event in Butler, Pa., in 2024 — the first of two attempts on his life during the campaign. The other involved a gunman targeting the president as he golfed in Florida, before federal agents intervened. Earlier this year, a gunman was killed at the president’s Mar-a-Lago residence after breaching a security perimeter.

On Sunday, questions swirled as to how such a security lapse could happen yet again — and whether large, high-profile events are safe for top officials in a nation where firearms are easy to obtain and ubiquitous.

Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche, in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday morning, said that federal authorities believe the suspect had set out alone “to target folks that work in the administration, likely including the president,” but that a motive was still being determined and evidence still being gathered — including from devices taken from Allen and in interviews with people who know him.

“As of now, we don’t have any connection to any particular policy directive of President Trump or Iran or anything else that we’re doing in this country, but we are looking into it,” he said.

Blanche also downplayed the threat posed to Trump, other officials in the room such as Vice President JD Vance and First Lady Melania Trump, and the hundreds of other attendees to the annual event. He said the gunman was stopped almost immediately after he darted past metal detectors and federal agents — a dramatic moment that was captured on surveillance video and posted online by the president.

“Let’s not forget that the suspect didn’t get very far. He barely broke the perimeter,” Blanche said. “And so while this was extraordinarily dangerous and put a lot of lives at risk and there’s no doubt that that’s something that we’re going to have to learn from over the next couple weeks, the system worked. We were safe, President Trump was safe. His Secret Service agents kept him safe. All of us were safe.”

Blanche’s assessment of the attacker’s breach of security — which he said was only “by a few feet” — was disputed by some.

According to other attendees, including Times journalists, event staffers were checking tickets, although not very thoroughly, at multiple points prior to escalators that descended to the metal detectors where Allen allegedly bolted past armed security.

The detectors were right outside the event hall and where the bathrooms for the event were located, and the assailant was taken to the ground about 10 to 15 feet beyond them, attendees said. The shots — including two from the gunman, according to Blanche — were heard in the ballroom.

Allen, who graduated from Caltech in 2017 with a degree in mechanical engineering and is registered to vote with no party preference, made a $25 political contribution earmarked for then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign challenging Trump for the presidency in 2024.

While at Caltech, he was a teaching assistant and a member of the school’s Christian fellowship and the Nerf club, according to his LinkedIn profile. He later studied computer science as a postgraduate student at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

Allen was named teacher of the month in December 2024 at C2 Education, which specializes in college test preparation, tutoring and academic advising. A representative for C2 Education was not immediately available for comment.

According to The New York PostAllen himself had derided the event security in his writings beforehand, describing finding far less security at the hotel than he had expected when he arrived, armed, to check in.

“I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo. What I got (who knows, maybe they’re pranking me!) is nothing. No damn security. Not in transport. Not in the hotel. Not in the event,” he wrote, according to the Post. “I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat.”

“I could have brought a damn Ma Deuce in here and no one would have noticed s—,” wrote the author, referring to a .50 caliber machine gun.

Authorities did not detail Allen’s alleged travel route to DC, other than to say it was by train. In response to questions about whether Allen had taken Amtrak to get to Washington and whether his luggage would have undergone any security screening, Amtrak said only that it is cooperating with federal authorities.

Trump also zeroed in on security at the hotel being inadequate, in addition to posting the video of the suspect rushing past security and multiple images of him detained on the floor of the hotel.

While praising the federal agents who took the attacker down, Trump suggested that events with top US officials should be held in more secure facilities — such as the giant ballroom he is trying to build on the White House grounds after demolishing the former East Wing.

“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 wrote on social media Sunday. “This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast enough!”

Weijia Jiang, president of the correspondents’ association, said in a statement Sunday that the group’s board “will be meeting to assess what happened and determine how to proceed.” She also thanked the US Secret Service and other law enforcement for keeping people safe, and praised journalists in the room for leaping to work to inform the public of what had occurred.

Brian Levin, a professor emeritus of Cal State San Bernardino and founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, said “newer and real, but mostly loner” threats of “hard left violence” against public officials have been on the rise.

“During this polarized era, self radicalization, psychological factors, weapons access, and the normalization of aggression have been recurrent recent themes as both extremist motivated homicides, threats against public officials, hate crime killings and aggravated bias assaults have all increased,” he said.

However, the threat is less organized and intertwined with peaceful civil society movements than some in the Trump administration have tried to portray, he said.

After Allen was first named in connection with the DC incident late Saturday, more than 100 journalists and other curious observers stood behind lines of yellow police tape at both ends of the Torrance street where he is believed to have lived — and where FBI agents had arrived in unmarked cars and armored vehicles about 9:45 p.m.

One local resident, who identified herself as Bora but declined to give her last name, said Sunday that it had been “loud until after midnight” in the usually quiet neighborhood. “Helicopters were overhead and people were out all night.”

She said she often waved to the friendly residents of the home agents had swarmed, who seemed “nothing special, just normal.”

Times staff writers Richard Winton, Ben Wieder and Justine McDaniel contributed to this report.