The voice of Cole Tomas Allen, the suspect in White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting, was heard in a resurfaced video on social media.
Allen, 31, a teacher and game designer from California, was featured in a news segment almost ten years ago, demonstrating a prototype he developed to enhance the safety of wheelchairs.
In 2017, Allen was a student at Caltech when he participated in an interview with ABC7 in Los Angeles during the “Aging into the Future” conference.
In the re-emerged footage, Allen discusses the creation of a prototype for an emergency brake designed for wheelchairs.
He further explain his invention, saying: “The wheelchair brakes tend to lock the wheels, but don’t actually lock the chair to the ground … the idea with this is to prevent it from moving at all.”
Allen’s prototype seemed to be primarily constructed from PVC pipe.
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Cole Tomas Allen faces two charges
As per his LinkedIn profile, Allen completed his undergraduate studies at Caltech in 2017, earning a degree in mechanical engineering, and subsequently obtained his master’s degree in computer science from Cal State University – Dominguez Hills in 2025.
Allen made a contribution of $25 to a political action committee associated with the Democratic Party in support of Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign for 2024, as indicated by federal campaign finance records.
On Saturday, Allen was taken into custody by the Secret Service after reportedly discharging a weapon at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, stated that Allen is facing charges for using a firearm during a violent crime and for assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon.
Cole Tomas Allen’s manifesto
Allen expressed strong opposition to the policies of the Trump administration and identified himself as a “Friendly Federal Assassin” in messages sent to family members just minutes prior to the attack, which authorities are increasingly considering to be politically motivated.
The messages, dispatched shortly before gunfire erupted on Saturday night at the Washington Hilton, contained numerous references to President Donald Trump without explicitly naming him and hinted at grievances regarding various actions taken by the administration, including U.S. military strikes on vessels accused of drug smuggling in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
