Cole Tomas Allen, the suspect of having tried to carry out an attack during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington attended by President Donald Trump, appears this Monday in federal court in the US capital to answer to a series of charges that include armed attack against a federal agent and the use of a firearm to commit a violent crime.
Allen, 31 years old and a teacher by profession in the town of Torrance, an hour and a half drive south from Los Angeles, is still a mystery. It is not known exactly his motivation or what he wanted to achieve, having managed to gain access, loaded with firearms and knives, to the ballroom where some 2,500 people were gathered in the basement of the Hilton hotel in Washington. Although little by little more details come to light and the American president spreads more theories. The suspect acted alone. Trump argues that he wanted to attack motivated by “anti-Christian hatred.”
The young engineering graduate, moonlighting as a game developer, maintains some parallels with John Hinckley, the author, 45 years and one month ago, of the assassination attempt against then-President Ronald Reagan, at the entrance, precisely, of the Hilton hotel, where the president had just given a speech and until then considered a relatively safe place due to its protected access, the so-called “presidential hallway.”
Like Hinckley, who was 26 years old on March 30, 1981, Allen is relatively young, comes from California and appears to have been a “lone wolf,” the figure with which criminology describes the perpetrator of an attack prepared without contact with others or knowledge of those in his environment. Both traveled by land from their home state to the country’s capital. The known similarities end there. The perpetrator of the attack against Reagan acted to try to attract the attention of actress Jodie Foster. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and committed to a mental health facility until 2022.
Allen was admitted to a hospital on Sundayin police custody, to undergo a mental health evaluation before his court appearance this Monday. The acting Secretary of Justice, Todd Blanche, considered credible the theory that the teacher, specialized in teaching unusual students, whether excellent or disastrous, intended to make an attempt on the life of the American president.
According to details that have been released throughout Sunday, Allen wrote a manifesto against Trump, which he sent in part to some relatives shortly before the attack on Saturday night. He warned them that he was planning an attack against those responsible for the Republican administration. Certainly, in that case the occasion seemed golden: the entire government was in that room, starting with the president and his number two, JD Vance, and continuing with everyone else: the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio; the Treasury, Scott Bessent; Defense, Pete Hegseth…
Trump himself advanced, in statements to the American media, the content, summarized in his own way, of the manifesto that Allen had left before traveling to Washington and – apparently – registering as a guest at the Hilton. One more among the travelers that the hotel can accommodate in its more than a thousand rooms, and who do not have to undergo special security measures to enter and leave the accommodation despite the swarm of personalities several floors below.
“When you read his manifesto, you realize that he hates Christians. That’s for sure. It’s a strong, anti-Christian hatred,” the president noted in comments to The New York Post. According to this tabloid, in the manifesto one can read opinions such as “turning the other cheek is something you do when you yourself are the one who suffers oppression.” Allen also allegedly lists a number of examples where someone has been harmed by the policies of the current Administration.
“I am not the person raped in a detention center. I am not the fisherman executed without prior trial. I am not the schoolboy who dies in an explosion, nor the child who dies of hunger, nor the teenager abused by the numerous criminals who make up this Government,” the New York newspaper publishes. “I am no longer willing to allow a pedophile, rapist and traitor to dirty my hands with his crimes,” the alleged statement adds, apparently referring to the president.
According to their social media profiles, Allen studied at Caltech, a highly prestigious private university and highly selective based in Pasadena, north of Los Angeles, where she graduated with a degree in engineering in 2017. She also received a master’s degree in computer science, which she had just completed last year. This time, however, at Dominguez Hills University, part of California State, a public university, prestigious but much cheaper than its first alma mater.
To get to Washington, Allen used public land transportation, the train and the bus, traveling from Los Angeles to Chicago and, from there, to the US capital. When he approached the metal detector arches in a very fast sprint at the checkpoint that gave access to the area marked off for the celebration, Allen was carrying a hunting shotgun, a pistol and a knife. Members of the investigation who interviewed members of the suspect’s family, and whom the CBS news network quotes, the teacher had a license to carry two weapons – one of them the pistol he was carrying on Saturday night – and frequently attended shooting practice.
By dint of strides, Allen managed to get past the security checkpoint. But he couldn’t advance much further. Meters further, he was intercepted and subdued by the agents; The images of him face down on the ground, bare-chested and handcuffed, have gone around the world.
