According to public records, the man suspected of opening fire at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday evening is a teacher and video game developer from Southern California.
Two sources familiar with the matter said that 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen, who lives in Torrance, a suburb of Los Angeles, has been confirmed by law enforcement as the armed individual apprehended near the dinner attended by President Trump and other officials.
A LinkedIn profile matching his name and photo describes him as a part-time instructor at C2 Education, a test preparation and tutoring company. According to company social media posts, C2 named Allen "Teacher of the Month" in December 2024. At around midnight on Saturday, no one answered C2's phone number.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Allen graduated from the California Institute of Technology in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, and last year earned a master’s degree in computer science from California State University, Dominguez Hills.
As a student at Caltech, he made local news in 2017 for developing a prototype emergency brake for wheelchairs.
According to records from the Federal Election Commission, Allen donated $25 to Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign in October 2024.
Allen also identifies himself on LinkedIn as a video game developer and appears to have released an independent game titled Bohrdom on the Steam platform, priced at $1.99. According to federal trademark records, he registered the trademark for the game in 2018.
On his LinkedIn profile, Allen wrote that he “is currently developing a second game, tentatively titled 'First Law'”.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1863507443668999/
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