FBI footage confirms suspect Cole Tomas Allen shot Secret Service officer

New evidence released by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia has addressed a gap in the official record regarding the shooting that occurred during the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. For days following the incident, law enforcement and administration officials had not definitively stated whose gunfire had struck a Secret Service officer. That ambiguity ended Thursday with the release of annotated surveillance footage.

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney prosecuting the case, shared the footage on social media, asserting that the video confirms the suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, shot the officer. The officer was protected by a bulletproof vest and was not seriously injured, according to President Trump. In her post, Pirro stated there was no evidence the shooting was the result of friendly fire.

Surveillance footage clarifies the breach at the Washington Hilton

The released video, which consists of more than five minutes of edited footage that varies in speed, provides a timeline of Allen’s movements both before and during the attack. According to reporting by CNBC, the footage reveals that Allen scouted the location a day before the event. On April 24, Allen is seen walking through a hallway at the Washington Hilton and entering an adjacent gym, where he spoke with an attendant before exiting back into the hallway.

The sequence on the night of the dinner, April 25, shows a more direct progression. At 8:23 p.m., Allen is seen wearing a long coat and walking down the same hallway he had scouted the previous day. By 8:36 p.m., the video captures the Secret Service checkpoint established on the floor above the ballroom to screen attendees.

The footage shows a specific sequence of events at the magnetometer area. While two officers began taking down one of two magnetometers, Allen walked through a side door roughly 10 steps behind the equipment. An officer with a dog approached the doorway and stood there for approximately 15 seconds before walking away. Allen then bolted from the doorway, carrying a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, and sprinted through the remaining standing magnetometer.

The video shows a Secret Service officer quickly drawing a handgun and firing multiple times at Allen. As he passed the officer, Allen raised his shotgun and pointed it at him. Allen was eventually brought down and disarmed at the top of a staircase leading down to the floor where the dinner was being held. Law enforcement recovered a shotgun, a handgun, and knives from the suspect.

From ambiguity to attribution: The Secret Service injury

The release of the video addresses a gap in the initial legal filings. When charges were first lodged against Allen on Monday, they included attempted assassination and firing a weapon, but they did not specifically include the shooting of a federal officer. At that stage, officials had stopped short of confirming who had fired the shot that struck the officer’s protective gear.

The new evidence and subsequent filings have supplemented the prosecution’s case. In a court filing submitted Wednesday, prosecutors stated they believe Allen fired his shotgun in the direction of the stairs leading down to the ballroom, according to The New York Times.

The transition from firing a weapon to the definitive claim that Allen shot an officer marks a development in the evidentiary record. With the assertion that friendly fire did not occur, prosecutors intend to link the suspect’s actions to the impact on law enforcement personnel, though the injury was mitigated by armor.

Evidence of intent and the suspect’s profile

Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old tutor and Caltech graduate from Torrance, California, left behind a digital and written trail that investigators are using to establish motive. While the government has not released a full psychological profile, a manifesto attributed to Allen contains explicit hostility toward the president.

In the manifesto, Allen described President Trump as a

“pedophile, rapist, and traitor,” Cole Tomas Allen, suspect manifesto

and referred to him as a sociopathic mob boss. The writings also criticized the political climate, claiming that Democrats were engaging in bipartisanship with Nazis by negotiating with Republicans, as noted in analysis by Slate.

Allen’s social media presence on Bluesky further suggests a profile aligned with specific anti-Trump circles. His posts indicated a familiarity with the work of various political commentators and a tendency to signal-boost content critical of both the president and certain socialist figures. Despite the extreme nature of the attack, his public-facing political rhetoric often mirrored mainstream liberal criticisms of the administration, though he eventually transitioned from political speech to the planning and execution of a violent attack.

As the case moves forward, the focus will shift to the formal integration of the surveillance footage into the trial evidence. Legal observers will be watching for whether the U.S. Attorney’s office adds more specific charges related to the assault on the Secret Service officer, given the new assertions made by Jeanine Pirro and the FBI.