New video shows correspondents' dinner suspect shooting officer, top prosecutor says
Video released Thursday shows the suspect in the shooting during the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner appearing to shoot a Secret Service officer as he sprints through a security checkpoint with a shotgun in his hands, authorities said.
Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, posted the video on X. She wrote that it shows Cole Tomas Allen shooting the Secret Service officer at the Washington Hilton hotel on Saturday.
“There is no evidence the shooting was the result of friendly fire,” Pirro said on X.
The video also shows Allen “casing the area in the Hilton Hotel the day before the attack,” Pirro wrote.
Prosecutors have called the shooting an attempt to assassinate President Donald Trump, who was at the dinner in the ballroom a floor below where the shooting occurred.
Allen is charged with three federal counts — one each of attempting to assassinate the president of the United States, transportation of a firearm and ammunition in interstate commerce with intent to commit a felony, and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence.
The video Pirro released shows the Secret Service officer firing his handgun. None of the five 9 mm rounds that he shot struck Allen, according to officials.
Prosecutors have said the Secret Service officer who was shot was wearing a ballistic vest. He was released from the hospital shortly after the shooting.
Allen, 31, a teacher from California, was arrested after the incident, and a judge ordered him Thursday to remain held in custody as the case proceeds.
Video with a Friday timestamp shows the man identified as Allen walking in a hotel hallway and looking around, and at one point he points at something. Other parts of the video show him in a gym, but he is not dressed to work out and is not seen exercising.
Around the time of the shooting, the video shows Secret Service and security standing around the two magnetometers, one of which is being taken down. A police dog appears to look into an open door down the hallway. Seconds later, the man identified as Allen sprints out that door and through one of the magnetometers with the shotgun.
A Secret Service officer wearing black with a ballistic vest is in the bottom of the frame, and the video shows him drawing his handgun and pointing it at the man as he approaches and firing as he passes. Others draw their guns, and more people run into the room, the video shows.
The video was slowed down and edited to show a circle around the man as he runs through the magnetometer and another circle around the officer’s drawn gun.
Prosecutors said Allen was not struck by gunfire but fell to the ground before he was arrested.
Prosecutors said that Allen traveled from Los Angeles to Washington and that he wrote in a “manifesto” that he intended to target members of the Trump administration at the annual correspondents’ dinner, from highest-ranking to lowest.
Allen was armed with a Mossberg 12-gauge pump-action shotgun and a Rock Island Armory 1911 .38 caliber pistol, as well as knives, officials have said.
After he traveled to Washington by train, Allen checked into the hotel where the dinner was to be held and took a photo of himself wearing a black dress shirt and slacks and a red tie, with a shoulder holster and an ammunition-filled bag, at around 8:03 p.m. Saturday, prosecutors said in court documents.
The shooting took place around 8:40 p.m. at the security checkpoint on the terrace level of the hotel, which is one floor above where the dinner was taking place, the Justice Department said.
Allen has not entered a plea. A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for May 11.
On Thursday, Allen’s attorneys did not challenge the government’s motion that he be detained but asked that he be removed from the 24-hour “safe cell” lockdown where he has been held.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya denied the request, saying she had no authority over what part of the jail Allen is held in.
Gary Grumbachand Fiona Glisson contributed.
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