The suspect who shot up the White House correspondents’ dinner was a part-time teacher, a game developer
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The suspect arrested at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday was identified by law enforcement officials as Cole Tomas Allen, a Los Angeles man who appeared on social media as a Caltech student who works as a part-time teacher and game developer.
The official said that Allen, who is about 31 years old, is a resident of Torrance, California, a coastal city that is part of the South Bay adjacent to Los Angeles and near Santa Monica Bay.
A Columbia County Sheriff’s Department official said investigators believe the suspect was a guest at the Washington Hilton Hotel, where an annual dinner was being held, but the motive was not yet clear.
A Facebook post that appears to be related to Allen shows that he was named “Teacher of the Month” for December 2024 by the Torrance office of C2 Education, a national private test preparation and tutoring service for college students.
US President Donald Trump asked a question on Saturday to Weijia Jiang, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, after gunfire sparked a massive security response at the annual dinner. A CBS News reporter was sitting at the same table as the president of the event.
A LinkedIn profile for the suspect describes him as “a mechanical engineer and computer scientist by degree, a freelance game developer by experience, a teacher by birth.”
He earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2017, and a master’s degree in computer science from California State University at Dominguez Hills in 2025, according to the profile.
Caltech said in a statement that the person of that name graduated in 2017.
US President Donald Trump posted a video and photos on social media of the suspect in what is described as a ‘shooting incident’ at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night.
Under work experience, the post shows that he has worked for the past few years as a part-time teacher for C2 Education and as a freelance game developer. He previously worked as a mechanical engineer at a company called IJK Controls in South Pasadena for a year before that as a teaching assistant at Caltech.
This profile includes a local newspaper article about “the robotics competition my team won” at Caltech in 2016.
Under “Causes,” it lists only: “Science and Technology.”
The Secret Service said the suspect was armed with a gun and was arrested after he opened fire on a Secret Service agent at the Washington Hilton Hotel, outside the arena where the event was attended by President Donald Trump, his wife Melania, Vice President JD Vance and several cabinet secretaries.
