Judge apologizes to White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting suspect after expressing ‘grave concerns’ about his treatment in jail

A federal judge overseeing the case against Cole Allen, the man accused of attempting to assassinate President Trump at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, apologized to the suspect in court after expressing “grave concerns” for how he is being treated in jail.

“Whatever you’ve been through, I apologize for the prior week,” Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui said during a hearing in Washington, D.C., on Monday.

At multiple points, Faruqui compared the conditions of Allen’s confinement to those of the people charged with crimes in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, saying they were treated better than Allen was.

“This is not the jail’s first go-around with people engaged in alleged political violence,” Faruqui said.

According to court documents filed over the weekend, Allen had been in solitary confinement at the D.C. Jail after being placed on suicide watch following his arrest on April 25. His lawyers said that he was housed in a permanently illuminated “safe cell” — with no access to personal items or jail visits — despite repeated assessments showing he did not exhibit any suicide factors. In an order issued on Sunday, Faruqui wrote that he had “grave concerns” about the conditions Allen was being kept in, which he said were “seemingly unprompted” by the facts of the case.

“It could drive a person crazy to be in that situation,” Faruqui said during Monday’s hearing.

Allen has since been removed from suicide watch, according to the May 3 filing.

Tony Towns, general counsel for the D.C. Department of Corrections, told the judge that decisions about Allen’s housing were not meant to be punitive. Prosecutors said the FBI had concerns because Allen had stated that he did not expect to survive the attack. Faruqui said Monday he interpreted that Allen expected to be shot, not take his own life.

The judge then apologized to Allen, saying it was the court’s job to make sure he is treated fairly while in detention. Faruqui also ordered jail officials to provide him an update on Allen’s conditions by Tuesday morning.

Allen was armed with a shotgun, handgun and multiple knives when he ran past a group of Secret Service officers standing near a metal detector in the hallway of the Washington Hilton during the annual gala, prosecutors said.

U.S. Secret Service personnel assigned to the checkpoint heard a loud gunshot, according to charging documents filed this week. One Secret Service officer who was wearing a bulletproof vest was shot in the chest but not seriously injured. The Secret Service agent fired five times but did not hit Allen. Allen fell to the ground, and officers detained him.

Allen has agreed to remain in custody until his trial.

Pirro: Pellet lodged in agent’s vest came from Allen’s shotgun

In an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said that a buckshot pellet was recovered from the bulletproof vest worn by a Secret Service agent who was shot during the attack.

“We now can establish that a pellet that came from the buckshot from the defendant’s ⁠Mossberg pump-action shotgun was intertwined with the fiber of the vest of the Secret Service officer,” Pirro said during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union. “It is definitively his bullet.”

Last week, Pirro posted a video on social media, saying it shows Allen “shoot a U.S. Secret Service officer.”

“There is no evidence the shooting was the result of friendly fire,” Pirro wrote in a post on X.

The surveillance footage appears to show Allen run through a magnetometer with a long gun as one officer draws his weapon and fires multiple times. It’s unclear from the video when Allen’s weapon fires, or which officer was struck.

The footage also appears to show Allen being followed by a K-9 officer into an open door in the hallway moments before running through the checkpoint. The K-9 officer and its handler walk away, and seconds later, Allen sprints through the metal detectors with the shotgun.

Pirro said the video “also shows Allen casing the area” the day before the alleged attack.

Who is the alleged attacker, and what was he charged with?

Cole Thomas Allen, a 31-year-old teacher from Torrance, Calif., graduated from the California Institute of Technology with a degree in mechanical engineering in 2017. He was a member of the Nerf Club and belonged to a campus Christian fellowship, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also reportedly tutored several high school students for a nonprofit in the Torrance area.

He is not registered as a member of any political party. His only political donation on record was a $25 contribution to Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign.

Allen has been charged with three federal crimes: Attempting to assassinate the president of the United States, discharging a firearm in an act of violence and transporting firearms across state lines. He could face life in prison if convicted.

How did Allen allegedly prepare for the attack?

According to court documents, Allen bought the shotgun used in the attack last August. He had purchased the pistol he was carrying in 2023.

He traveled from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., by train, a journey that took three days. While en route, he allegedly researched details of the correspondents’ dinner on his phone. He checked into the Washington Hilton the day before the event.

About half an hour before the attack, he took a selfie in his hotel room mirror showing the various weapons he had strapped to his body, the documents say. In the minutes before, Allen allegedly used his cellphone to look up Trump’s location on a website called CivicTracker and to watch live news coverage of the event.

What happened during the dinner?

At approximately 8:40 p.m., roughly half an hour after the dinner had started, Allen allegedly ran through the security checkpoint inside a hallway on the terrace level, one floor above where the event was taking place.

The sound of gunshots led to a chaotic scene inside the ballroom, as Secret Service agents rushed the president, Vice President JD Vance and other members of the Trump administration to safety. Hundreds of other guests ducked under tables.

After the incident, there were some brief indications that the dinner might continue as planned, but the ballroom was eventually cleared. Trump later said the event would be rescheduled within 30 days.

How close did Allen get to Trump?

Allen was stopped near the top of a set of stairs leading to the ballroom level. The president was seated at a table on the opposite side of the room from the entrance closest to where Allen was apprehended.

At a press conference last week, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the security response to the attack.

“I want to make this clear: This man was a floor above the ballroom with hundreds of federal agents between him and the president of the United States,” Blanche said. “Law enforcement did not fail. They did exactly what they were trained to do.”

What weapons did he have?

According to court documents, Allen was carrying a 12-gauge pump shotgun and .38 caliber pistol, with a significant amount of additional ammunition at the time of the incident. He was also allegedly carrying two knives and four daggers.

In an affidavit, prosecutors said there was “one spent cartridge” in the barrel of Allen’s shotgun when he was arrested.

In an email Allen purportedly sent out before the attack, he said that he was using buckshot, a form of shotgun ammunition often used by hunters, to minimize casualties.

What else did the email say?

According to the affidavit, Allen sent an email to family and friends just a few minutes before he charged the security checkpoint. In the message, he repeatedly apologized to different groups of people to whom he lied during his preparations for the attack and for any fallout that may come afterward.

Though the message doesn’t mention Trump by name, it does reference allegations made against the president.

“I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” Allen purportedly wrote.

The email also specifically labels members of the Trump administration as “targets” and says that the Secret Service and other security officers are targets “only if necessary.”

He allegedly signed the message with the moniker “Friendly Federal Assassin.”

What’s next?

Allen has not entered a plea. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for May 11.