WASHINGTON, D.C. — Federal authorities charged Cole Tomas Allen with attempting to assassinate President Trump and top administration officials at the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C.

According to a pretrial detention memo, federal authorities allege Allen sent a document to his family members in which he laid out rules of engagement. The document states the author apologized to his parents, colleagues and others before laying out the rules, and specified that guests, hotel security and staff, and other people not in elected office or government were not targets. The document states the author was targeting top Trump administration officials because he was "no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes."

Allen grew up in a middle-class suburban part of Torrance, one of four siblings who all attended universities. His parents were both teachers. He enjoyed video games, manga and riding his blue scooter, and on his social media accounts criticized U.S. policy in the wars in Ukraine and Iran.

Allen was homeschooled, and through a special program took a class at Pacific Lutheran in Gardena and played for its volleyball team. As a high school junior, he led the team to a three-set win over Junipero Serra High School. After finishing homeschooling, he was accepted into Caltech, where he joined the Caltech Christian Fellowship and organized Bible discussions in a leadership role. He was a member of Caltech's fencing team and Nerf Club, served as a teaching assistant, and in 2016 was part of a five-person team that won the school's annual robotics and design competition. He also interned at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge for three months.

Elizabeth Terlinden, co-president of Caltech Christian Fellowship, described Allen during his time at the school. "Quiet guy, kind of nondescript, generally polite, got good grades," she said.

Allen graduated from Caltech with a mechanical engineering degree in 2017 and worked as a mechanical engineer for IJK Controls in South Pasadena, where he worked on stabilized gimbals for Hollywood for about six months alongside Kevin Baragona, founder of DeepAI. Baragona said Allen was mainly interested in video games and showed him a couple of games he had made or was working on. "Kind of tired, unmotivated, like he didn't want to really work hard, and maybe depressed," Baragona said of Allen during that period.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Allen worked as a self-employed indie game developer from September 2018 to March 2020. In 2019, he registered a trademark for a video game called "Bohrdom," described as a hybrid of a bullet hell and a racing game based on atomic theory in which electrons and protons compete. Three other video game projects detailed in his professional bio remained unfinished.

In March 2020, Allen began working as a tutor at C2 Education, and in December 2024 he was named teacher of the year at the company's Torrance location. In May 2025, he received a master's degree from California State University, Dominguez Hills in Carson.

Joaquin Miranda, the parent of a C2 Education student, said of Allen: "She can't believe it, because he was very nice, very professional and a very cool guy. So yeah, it's crazy."