Ammon News - The suspect arrested in the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting on Saturday was identified by a law enforcement official as Cole Tomas Allen, a Los Angeles-area man who appears ​from social media sites to be a Caltech graduate working as a part-time ‌teacher and game developer.

The official said Allen, approximately 31 years of age, is a resident of Torrance, California, a coastal town that is part of the South Bay area adjacent to Los Angeles abutting ​Santa Monica Bay.

The chief of the District of Columbia police department said ​investigators believe the suspect was a guest at the Washington Hilton hotel, ⁠where the annual dinner was taking place, but that no motive had been determined.

Facebook ​postings appearing to relate to Cole show that he was named “Teacher of the Month” in ​December 2024 by the Torrance office of C2 Education, a nationwide private test-preparation and tutoring service for college-bound students.

A LinkedIn profile in the suspect's name describes him as a "mechanical engineer and computer scientist by degree, ​independent game developer by experience, teacher by birth."

He obtained 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 a person of that name graduated in 2017.

Under job experience, the post shows he has worked for the past several years as a part-time teacher for C2 Education ​and as a self-employed ​game developer. He ⁠previously worked as a mechanical engineer for a company called IJK Controls in South Pasadena for a year before that as a Caltech ​teaching assistant.

The profile also includes a local newspaper article "on a ​robotics competition my ⁠team won" at Caltech in 2016.
Under "Causes," it lists only: "Science and Technology."

Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump were rushed to safety Saturday night after a man armed with a shotgun

The Secret Service said the suspect was armed with a shotgun and was taken into custody after opening fire ⁠at a ​Secret Service agent in the Washington Hilton Hotel, outside ​the ballroom where the event was attended by President Donald Trump, his wife Melania, Vice President JD Vance and ​several cabinet secretaries.

Reuters