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A suspect in an attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner reportedly criticized the event’s security measures in a manifesto he left behind.
Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old teacher from Torrance, California, was apprehended on Saturday night after trying to rush a security checkpoint. He was armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and several knives.
Allen engaged in a gunfire exchange with Secret Service agents before they subdued and arrested him. One agent was hit in the bulletproof vest but is expected to be fine. Fortunately, there were no other injuries reported.
The New York Post obtained and fully published Allen’s manifesto, which outlines his motivations for the planned attack, his self-imposed ‘rules of engagement,’ and a lengthy criticism of the minimal security he encountered.
In a postscript to his manifesto, Allen questioned the effectiveness of the security measures, bluntly asking, “What the hell is the Secret Service doing?”
‘I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo. What I got (who knows, maybe they’re pranking me!) is nothing,’ he continued.
The radicalized teacher described a ‘sense of arrogance’ at the Washington Hilton Hotel, where the dinner was held.
‘The security at the event is all outside… because apparently no one thought about what happens if someone checks in the day before,’ Allen wrote.
Cole Tomas Allen, 31, a teacher from Torrance, California, is the suspected shooter of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. He mocked the event’s lack of security in his manifesto
Secret Service agents were seen with their guns drawn as they gave people orders
Allen is seen after he was tackled to the ground and handcuffed by authorities
He said that the security was so lacking that, ‘if I was an Iranian agent, instead of an American citizen, I could have brought a damn Ma Deuce in here and no one would have noticed sh**.’
Ma Deuce is a nickname for the M2 Browning .50-caliber machine gun.
Earlier in his manifesto, Allen explained why he had attempted to break into the dinner and kill top Trump administration officials.
‘I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,’ he wrote, likely in reference to President Donald Trump. He said that as a citizen of the US, what his representatives do reflects on him.
The suspected shooter added that he had wanted to take action for a long time, ‘but this is the first real opportunity I’ve had to do something about it.’
He then went on to explain his ‘rules of engagement’ and outlined who his targets were.
‘Administration officials (not including Mr. Patel): they are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest,’ Allen wrote. It is unclear why Kash Patel, the director of the FBI, was spared from his hit list.
Allen then listed other targets in order of priority. He wrote that Secret Service agents who get in his way were ‘targets only if necessary,’ and that he hoped to incapacitate them ‘non-lethally if possible.’
Allen wrote in his manifesto that Secret Service agents would only be targets if necessary and that he would try to incapacitate them ‘non-lethally if possible.’ A Secret Service agent is pictured shouting during the shooting
Allen also wrote that he would ‘go through most everyone here to get to the targets’ because they ‘*chose* to attend a speech by a pedophile, rapist, and traitor.’ Guests of the dinner are pictured taking cover during the shooting
‘I hope they’re wearing body armor because center mass with shotguns messes up people who *aren’t*,’ he wrote. Allen reportedly did later shoot one Secret Service agent in a bulletproof vest.
He also wrote that hotel security, Capitol police and national guardsmen would only be targets if they shot at him first.
Hotel guests and employees were ‘not targets at all,’ he wrote.
‘In order to minimize casualties I will also be using buckshot rather than slugs (less penetration through walls),’ Allen’s manifesto continued.
But he ominously added: ‘I would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary (on the basis that most people *chose* to attend a speech by a pedophile, rapist, and traitor, and are thus complicit) but I really hope it doesn’t come to that.’
This is a developing story. More to follow.