New footage released by prosecutors shows a gunman bursting out of a hotel doorway and charging through a security checkpoint in just four seconds while President Donald Trump was attending a press gala. The CCTV video appears to depict a security agent opening fire towards the sprinting gunman, who was carrying a long-barrelled weapon, though it remains unclear if he discharged it. The clip does not include the part where investigators state the alleged attacker fell and was subsequently arrested at the Washington Hilton on Saturday. Cole Tomas Allen, 31, has been charged with attempting to assassinate President Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. He has not yet entered a plea. The US Justice Department indicates that the video also shows Allen “casing the area” at the hotel the day before the dinner, when he allegedly checked in as a guest. Prosecutors state he was seen walking down a Washington Hilton corridor on the eve of the gala and briefly entering the hotel’s gym. The defendant is accused of carrying a semi-automatic handgun, a pump-action shotgun, and three knives as he ran through a terrace level, one floor above the basement ballroom where the high-profile press gala was taking place. Trump, Vice-President JD Vance, cabinet members, and other White House officials were swiftly evacuated from the venue after gunfire erupted. The new video, posted on X on Thursday by US Attorney for Washington DC Jeanine Pirro, appears to be a higher-quality version of a clip previously shared by Trump on social media following Saturday’s incident. The latest footage reveals nearly a dozen security agents gathered around a security checkpoint at the hotel. A man in a long dark coat walks through the corridor and disappears into a doorway. Moments later, the gunman, having removed his coat, re-emerges and sprints through a metal detector with both hands on what appears to be a gun. According to an affidavit filed by prosecutors, his coat was concealing a 12-gauge shotgun. The footage seems to show an officer firing his handgun at the suspect. Prosecutors have stated that the agent was hit by gunfire, but the alleged assailant was not shot. A Secret Service spokesman informed the BBC on Thursday: “The officer was struck in the ballistic vest, but was not seriously injured.” Ballistics experts have been investigating whether the Secret Service officer was hit by a bullet fired by the suspect or by other law enforcement personnel at the scene. Pirro stated in Thursday’s post on X: “There is no evidence the shooting was the result of friendly fire.” However, a memo filed by prosecutors on Wednesday, requesting a judge to hold Allen in custody pending trial, makes no mention of any officer being shot. It states that as the suspect ran through the checkpoint, a Secret Service officer “observed the defendant fire the shotgun in the direction of the stairs leading down to the ballroom.” Earlier statements in charging documents alleged that one officer was hit in the ballistic vest by a single shot fired by the suspect. Defence lawyers for Allen have questioned prosecutors’ claims that their client opened fire. On Thursday, the director of the US Secret Service told Fox News that the suspect had fired at a Secret Service agent at “point-blank range.” “All the evidence that I’ve seen, the suspect shot our officer point-blank range with a shotgun,” Sean Curran told the network. “Our officer heroically returned fire while being shot point-blank range in the chest with a shotgun, he was able to get off five shots. It appears that the suspect hit his knee, while being engaged by the officer, on one of our magnetometer boxes and began to fall to the ground. That’s what appears to be, and at that moment is when officers and agents were able to subdue him and pile on top of him.” Allen faces additional charges, including transportation of a firearm between states to commit a felony and discharging a firearm in a crime of violence \u2013 both of which carry maximum sentences of 10 years.
\n#TrumpIncident
\n#SecretService
\n#WashingtonHilton
\n#GunmanArrest
\n#PresidentialSecurity
\n#WhiteHouseCorrespondentsDinner
\n#ColeTomasAllen
\n#USJustice
\n#SecurityBreach
\n#BreakingNews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New footage released by prosecutors shows a gunman bursting out of a hotel doorway and charging through a security checkpoint in just four seconds while President Donald Trump was attending a press gala. The CCTV video appears to depict a security agent opening fire towards the sprinting gunman, who was carrying a long-barrelled weapon, though […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}