Assassination bid suspected; security nabs shooter
A California school teacher who graduated from Caltech and interned at a Nasa lab was apprehended by the Secret Service on Saturday after he tried to shoot his way into a media dinner with the intent to attack US President Donald Trump who was to speak at the event.
In what was described as a third such attempt to target Trump, a 32-year old man named Cole Tomas Allen tried to storm into the Washington Hilton Hotel banquet hall where the US President was attending the annual White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) dinner.
The gathering of media figures, social elites, and political heavies, including Trump’s cabinet associates, had just settled in for a pre-speech dinner when several gun shots were heard outside the hall, sending Secret Service scrambling to evacuate the President, First Lady Melania Trump, and other senior administration officials, including vice-president JD Vance. No shots were fired at the President himself or at the gathering.
White House and Secret Service officials later said Allen, who was staying at the same hotel, tried to shoot his way past the main magnetometer screening area outside the banquet hall but was tackled by security and arrested unharmed. A Secret Service agent who was shot at by Allen was saved by his bullet proof vest.
Appearing in the White House briefing room about an hour after he had been evacuated, President Trump, looking quite composed, referred to previous attempts on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania, and in Palm Beach, said it was not the first time his life was in danger, and urged Americans to resolve differences peacefully.
Asked why he thought he was being targeted, Trump, invoking Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, said it was always the most impactful people who are targeted. “The people that do the most… the people who make the most impact, they go after them. I hate to say I am honored by that…. I have done a lot (for the US),” he asserted.
He also pivoted to the Iran situation, saying “when you do things like that you become a target.”
Rejecting the idea of giving up public appearances, Trump used the occasion to make the case for the White House ballroom he is obsessed with, saying the hotel where the incident took place was not particularly secure and even the military and Secret Service is demanding a secure, drone-proof ballroom.
Putting up a brave face, Trump also announced on Truth Social that the dinner would be rescheduled within 30 days.
Trump’s message earned encomiums from many of his supporters, who portrayed the incident as a third assassination attempt on him and praised his courage in wanting to return to deliver his speech. Some supporters blamed the “radical left” for the purported assassination attempt even as the first sketchy details were trickling out, while chronic Trump critics picked holes in the official version, dubbing it “staged.”
The US Secret Service said in a statement soon after the incident that it is investigating a shooting incident near the main magnetometer screening area in the hotel and one individual is in custody. While some reports said one suspect was shot in the melee, the Secret Service said the “condition of those involved is not yet known, and law enforcement is actively assessing the situation,” suggesting there may be others involved. Trump however said the incident appeared to involve a “lone wolf.”
