Washington, DC
New images emerge of suspect at White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting Cole Tomas Allen, the California man accused of opening fire outside the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, was seen in newly released photographs taken before the attack, around 8:03 p.m. ET on Saturday. He was dressed all in black, with a red tie tucked into his pants, and carrying weapons and ammunition strapped to his body. The photo was taken in front of the mirror in his Hilton hotel room.
The images were included in a court document detailing the government’s opposition to bail for Cole Tomas Allen, who is accused of attacking the annual gathering of journalists and government officials in Washington, D.C.
He faces one count each of attempted assassination of the president, interstate transportation of a firearm and ammunition with the intent to commit a felony, and discharging a firearm during a violent crime.
The evidence of his guilt is overwhelming, the prosecutor added. “Had the defendant succeeded in his objective, he would have brought about one of the darkest days in American history,” wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Jones.
Prosecutors indicated that the image showed the suspect with a small leather pouch, similar to the ammunition pouch later seized from him, along with a shoulder holster, a sheathed knife, pliers, and wire cutters, according to the court document. Allen allegedly stormed through the Terrace Level security checkpoint of the Washington Hilton with a shotgun raised, Jones wrote. The document also included images of the shotgun Allen allegedly used in Saturday’s confrontation, along with the knives and a loaded .38-caliber handgun.
According to the prosecutor, after Allen allegedly ran through a metal detector, a Secret Service agent “drew his service weapon and fired five shots at the defendant.”
“The defendant fell to the ground, was subdued by law enforcement, and arrested,” Jones added. “The defendant suffered a minor injury to his knee, but was not shot.” “This was a planned attack of incomprehensible malice that endangered the lives of hundreds of people whose only transgression was attending an annual event celebrating the media and featuring the President of the United States,” Jones wrote. “It was, in essence, an anti-democratic act of political violence.”
Allen arrived in Washington, with his legally acquired weapons, on an Amtrak train trip from Los Angeles to Chicago and then on to the nation’s capital. According to Jones, the route Allen took is famous for its scenic views of the mountains and deserts of the American West before crossing the vast expanse of the Great Plains.
The prosecution stated that Allen kept a record of his observations and thoughts on his phone during this long journey.
In contrast to the violent acts he allegedly planned, Allen seemed to greatly appreciate the beautiful American landscapes that unfolded before the train window. He wrote: “The Southwest desert in spring.” Distant wind turbines that rise like snowy mountains in the middle of the misty New Mexico desert, that Chicago is great; like a small Iowa town on a Los Angeles scale, and that the forests of Pennsylvania “are breathtaking (they look like vast fairytale landscapes filled with little streams in spring, apparently),” Jones wrote.
