A California engineer has been identified in a suspected shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

A 31-year-old engineer and computer scientist has been identified by media reports and President Donald Trump as the suspected shooter at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night.

Cole Thomas Allen, of Torrance, California, was arrested after the shooting at the Washington Hilton, where Trump was scheduled to deliver remarks to a room full of reporters, Cabinet officials and Hilton employees. Allen’s name appeared in media reports shortly before Trump released two photos of the suspect after his arrest. The person in the photos posted by Trump matches the photos of Allen.

In the dramatic scenes, several gunshots were heard outside the hall, after which the US Secret Service immediately removed Trump and his vice president, J.D. Vance, from the stage. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, it briefly looked as if the event would go ahead — Trump posted “Let the show go on” on Truth Social — but the event was eventually shut down.

According to the Metropolitan Police Department, the suspect “stormed” a Secret Service checkpoint at the Hilton Hotel and was intercepted by agents. Interim Police Chief Jeffrey Carroll said the suspect was carrying “a rifle, a handgun and several knives.”

At a White House news conference following the shooting, Trump said a US Secret Service agent was shot but was saved from serious injury because of his bulletproof vest. Trump said the client, whom he did not name, was “doing great” and “doing great.” No other injuries were immediately reported.

The suspect was later taken to a local hospital “for evaluation,” according to Carroll, who said he appeared to be a “lone actor.”

As Trump’s news conference began on Saturday evening, he posted a photo on his Truth Social account that appeared to show the suspected shooter on the ground, with his hands tied behind his back, and a heating blanket covering the lower half of his body.

A WIRED review of public databases shows what appears to be little online presence associated with Allen’s name. According to his LinkedIn profile, he graduated from Caltech in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from California State University Dominguez Hills and in 2025 with a master’s degree in computer science. A clear photo of Allen on Caltech’s website shows him as a member of the school’s Mechanical Engineering 72 class, which the school describes as a “two-classroom engineering design lab” for building robots and autonomous vehicles. His name is also listed in the 2025 graduating class at Dominguez Hills. A search of a public facial recognition database turns up only two photos, both of which appear to be of him when he was a college student.

According to the shooter’s LinkedIn profile, he has been employed part-time since March 2020 at C2 Education, a private company that helps students prepare for the SAT and ACT exams. In December 2024, C2 Education said in posts on LinkedIn and Facebook that it was the company’s “December Educator of the Month.”

Since 2018, the suspected shooter has identified himself on his LinkedIn profile as a “self-employed” indie game developer. He appears to have released an “atomic fighting game” called Bohrdom on Steam in 2018. He advertised the game using accounts on YouTube and X that appear to have no following. The game’s promotional commentary describes it as “a non-violent, skill-based, asymmetrical fighting game loosely based on an alchemical model that is itself loosely based on reality.”

Allen’s relatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment. C2 Education and the Metropolitan Police Department also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.