TORRANCE, CALIFORNIA — Cole Tomas Allen, a native of Torrance, California, was arrested Saturday in Washington after a shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Secret Service agents subdued the man who reportedly fired a gun during the incident, and one officer was struck by a gunshot but was protected by a bulletproof vest. The shooter is in custody.

President Donald Trump posted footage Saturday on Truth Social showing a man charging through a security checkpoint at the event. Trump also posted a photo to Truth Social showing the alleged attacker being taken into custody.

The White House Correspondents' Dinner has been held annually since soon after World War I. Its modern form features a red carpet attended by journalists, political staffers, business leaders, and celebrities, with the president and a comedian delivering roasts.

Allen earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2017. During his senior year of college, he was interviewed by an ABC station in Los Angeles for a story about new technologies to help people as they age, in which he had developed a prototype for a new type of emergency brake for wheelchairs. While at Caltech, Allen was involved in a Christian student fellowship and a campus group that battled with Nerf guns.

He earned a master's degree in computer science from California State University-Dominguez Hills in May 2025. Allen works as a tutor and is an amateur video game developer. His online resume states he worked for six years at C2 Education, and a 2024 post on the company's Facebook page named him as its teacher of the month.

Allen developed a video game for the Steam platform based on molecular chemistry. He also posted that he was working to develop a new "top-down shooter" combat game set in outer space.