White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting suspect worked as California teacher
Originally Published: 26 APR 26 00:17 ET
By Casey Tolan, Kristen Holmes, Holmes Lybrand, CNN
(CNN) — The man suspected of opening fire at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Saturday night worked as a teacher and video game developer from Southern California, according to public records.
Cole Tomas Allen, 31, who lives in the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance, has been identified by law enforcement as the armed man subdued near the dinner where President Trump and other officials had gathered, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
A LinkedIn profile matching his name and photo described him as a part-time teacher at C2 Education, a test prep and tutoring company. C2 named Allen the company’s “teacher of the month” in December 2024, according to social media posts from the company. No one answered a phone number for C2 late Saturday evening.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Allen graduated from the California Institute of Technology in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, and received a master’s degree in computer science from California State University-Dominguez Hills last year.
As a student at Caltech, he was featured in a local news report in 2017 for developing a prototype emergency brake for wheelchairs.
Allen donated $25 to Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign in October 2024, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Allen also described himself as a video game developer on his LinkedIn profile, and appears to have published an indie game called Bohrdom for sale on the Steam gaming platform for $1.99. He registered a trademark for the game’s name in 2018, according to federal trademark records.
On his LinkedIn, Allen wrote that he was “currently developing a second game, working name ‘First Law.’”
CNN’s Curt Devine, Scott Glover, Kyung Lah and Majlie de Puy Kamp contributed reporting.
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