The shooting suspect detained after a White House Correspondents’ Association dinner was identified as Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, officials said Saturday. Two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that Allen was believed to have gotten past the outermost layer of security at the event because he was a guest of the hotel where the dinner took place. The AP also reported that officials said Allen was armed with a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives.
Officials said Saturday that the suspect’s access appears to have begun at the hotel level rather than in the secured ballroom area. Jeffery Carroll, the interim police chief for Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department, told reporters that investigators believed Allen was staying in the hotel and that appears to be how he was able to enter the property during the event.
Investigators said the Washington Hilton was closed to the public starting at 2 p.m. Saturday in anticipation of the dinner, which began at 8 p.m. The AP reported that outside the hotel, dozens of protesters gathered in the rain and mostly directed their criticism at the media attending the event.
Access to the building was restricted to hotel guests, people with tickets to the dinner, people invited to receptions held at the hotel before or after the dinner, and people carrying White House Correspondents’ Association documents indicating affiliation, according to the AP. The dinner itself drew about 2,300 guests to a subterranean ballroom, and those guests had to pass additional checks to enter the room. Those included showing tickets to association volunteers and hotel staff and passing through magnetometers manned by the Secret Service and the Transportation Security Administration.
Officials also said that once President Donald Trump was seated in the ballroom, additional attendees were not permitted into the secured area. The AP reported that security-camera footage released by Trump to social media after the incident showed the gunman running past security officers who appeared to be disassembling the metal detectors.
Secret Service director Sean Curran said in remarks to reporters that the incident showed “our multi-layered protection works.” Carroll said the security plan for the evening was developed by the Secret Service and “that security plan did work this evening,” according to the AP.
Inside the ballroom, the AP reported that Secret Service maintained another perimeter around Trump, including a buffer separating him and others at the head table from the rest of the attendees. The AP said armored plates were hidden under the table where Trump was seated, and Secret Service agents stood at posts in front of the stage and in its wings. The AP also reported that heavily armed counter-assault agents were positioned to respond to threats, and that security details for dozens of other high-profile attendees were present in the ballroom.
The AP reported that the hotel’s spokesperson directed questions about the hotel’s security measures to the U.S. Secret Service.
The Washington Hilton has long been used for major presidential-era events, and the AP said everyday people have sometimes been able to observe such events from the lobby or during visits when the hotel was not under strict closure. The AP pointed to the venue’s history as the site of an attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan 45 years earlier, when John Hinckley Jr. shot Reagan on March 30, 1981, as Reagan returned to his limousine after a speaking engagement.
After that earlier attack, the AP reported, the hotel built security modifications to accommodate the president, including a secured garage designed to fit the presidential limousine and a dedicated elevator and staircase to ferry it to a secured suite reserved for presidential personal use. The AP also said the suite includes a reserved bathroom.
The AP reported that because of the venue’s history, the Secret Service has long used the annual event to put some agents through their paces, and that the hotel’s protections have been studied by the agency over decades. It added that in the years since the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, many major hotels have tightened security protocols more broadly, including periodic room checks or policies aimed at flagging extended privacy requests, though the AP said it was not immediately clear when Allen checked into the hotel or whether any such measures applied in his case.