The armed assailant who plunged the White House Accredited Correspondents' Association gala into chaos, attended by the US president, was identified on Sunday by US media as a 31-year-old mechanical engineer from California. He will be presented to court on Monday.
Published on: 04/26/2026 - 10:43 p.m. Modified on: 04/27/2026 - 08:22
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The armed assailant who attempted to burst into the press gala attended by the US president was identified on Sunday April 26 by US media as a 31-year-old mechanical engineer from California.
He must be presented during the day on Monday to a federal judge in Washington. He will be charged with two counts: the first for use of a firearm during a violent crime, the second for the assault of a federal agent using a dangerous weapon.
Hours after the shots were fired outside the ballroom where the White House Correspondents' Association dinner was held on Saturday, Donald Trump shared a photo of the suspect handcuffed, face down on the carpet.
The man with brown hair and a mustache was identified by several American media outlets, citing law enforcement sources, as Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, a southwest suburb of Los Angeles, California.
Donald Trump told Fox News on Sunday that the suspect, who tried to force his way near a metal detector located at the entrance to the room, had left a manifesto.
“When you read his manifesto, he hates Christians, there’s no doubt about it,” he said, speaking of an “obviously very disturbed” person.
According to the New York Post, the suspect had sent his family a few minutes before carrying out this manifesto in which he announced his intention to kill members of the Trump administration, described as "criminals".
“Friendly Federal Assassin”
“These are targets, ranked by priority from highest to lowest,” is written in this message, according to the newspaper which says it obtained it from an American official of whom it does not give the name.
This text, signed with the name "Cole 'coldForce' 'Friendly Federal Assassin' Allen", seems to refer to civilian deaths in wars in which the United States is involved, to Donald Trump's anti-immigration policy or even to the scandal surrounding the sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.
A "coldforce" profile on the BlueSky platform, deactivated but archived on Sunday, contained frequent messages expressing the author's outrage at the Trump administration's policies.
Another profile on LinkedIn under the name "Cole Allen" showed a photo of a man who appears to match the photo shared by Donald Trump. On this profile, Cole Allen presented himself as an engineer passionate about video game development, based in the Los Angeles area.
“Mechanical engineer and computer scientist by training, independent game developer by experience, teacher by birth”, we could read on this profile.
The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) announced in a press release to AFP that an individual named Cole Allen had graduated from it in 2017, without being able to confirm that he was the suspect.
“Teacher of the month”
Last year, Cole Allen posted a photo of himself in a graduation cap and cap, indicating that he was "finished" with his master's degree in computer science at California State University Dominguez Hills.
The university also confirmed to AFP that it had a graduate of this name, without being able to confirm that it was the same person.
Cole Allen also posted about an indie game he developed called "Bohrdom," described as a "skill-based, non-violent" fighting game.
C2 Education, a Torrance-based competitive exam prep academy, named Cole Allen as "Teacher of the Month" in an Instagram post dated December 2024. In the post, a brown-haired man with a half-smile, wearing a navy zippered sweater, is seen with his hands crossed behind his back.
According to NBC News, he attended Pacific Lutheran High School in suburban Los Angeles and was on the volleyball team.
A former teammate described him as "almost a genius" and "super stable". "The others study a lot. He didn't need to study. It just came to him. He was really, really smart," this former teammate told NBC.
According to Federal Election Commission records consulted by AFP, a person named Cole Allen, identified as a teacher at C2 Education in Torrance, donated $25 to a group raising funds for the campaign of Democrat Kamala Harris, unsuccessful candidate against Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
With AFP
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