Social and professional profiles tied to the California man arrested Saturday after a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner depict him as a well-educated tutor and amateur game developer.
A LinkedIn profile photo from May 2025 for Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California, appears to match an image posted Saturday night by President Donald Trump showing the alleged attacker being taken into custody. The LinkedIn picture shows Allen in cap and gown after receiving a master’s degree in computer science from California State University, Dominguez Hills.
Allen, 31, earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena in 2017. His online profiles note participation in a Christian student fellowship and a campus group known for organizing Nerf gun skirmishes.
During his senior year, Allen was interviewed by a Los Angeles ABC station for a story about new technologies to assist aging people; he had developed a prototype emergency brake for wheelchairs. Federal campaign finance records show a $25 donation from Allen to a Democratic political action committee that supported Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign.
His résumé and social posts list six years with C2 Education, a company offering admissions counseling and test prep; a 2024 C2 Education Facebook post named him teacher of the month. Allen also has shared projects related to game development, including a chemistry-based game available on the Steam platform and a work-in-progress top-down shooter set in outer space.
Authorities have identified Allen as the person arrested in the incident, but he is an alleged attacker and the investigation is ongoing.
