What we know about Cole Tomas Allen, man accused of shooting at White House correspondents' dinner
31-year-old Allen is from Torrance, California. The National Investigative Unit has confirmed that Allen was working as a tutor in Torrance. Social media posts from C2 Education in Torrance show Allen was named the Teacher of the Month in December 2024.
Federal Election records show Allen made a $25 donation on October 13, 2024, earmarked for the Kamala Harris campaign. Allen's voting record in California did not show a party a affiliation.
A May 2025 profile photo of Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California, appears to match the appearance of the man in a photo of the alleged attacker posted by President Donald Trump. The photo, posted to the social networking site LinkedIn, shows him after graduating with a master's degree in computer science from California State University-Dominguez Hills.
Allen earned a bachelor's degree in 2017 in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He listed his involvement there in a Christian student fellowship and a campus group that battled with Nerf guns.
Bin Tang, a computer science professor at California State University-Dominguez Hills, told The Associated Press that Allen took a few of his classes before graduating.
"He was a very good student indeed, always sitting in the first row of my class, paying attention, and frequently emailing me with coursework questions. Soft spoken, very polite, a good fellow. I am very shocked to see the news," Tang wrote in an email.
A local ABC station in Los Angeles included an interview with Allen during his senior year of college as part of a story about new technologies to help people as they age. He had developed a prototype for a new type of emergency brake for wheelchairs.
There was a shooting in Butler, and one man was killed. That's a fact. Was Trump hit by a bullet or flying debris? That's a real question. Was Trump not hit at all but used a blood packet to make it look like he was? If that's the case, then Thomas Crook would have had to have been programmed to miss Trump & Trump would have had to have known about the plan. It is possible in the grand scheme of things, but there is no proof this is what happened. But, of course, there wouldn't be.