Cole Tomas Allen, 31, has been identified as the suspect arrested in the shooting linked to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Social media and professional profiles portray him as a software developer and teacher.
Officials say Allen lives in Torrance, California, a coastal South Bay city. The chief of the District of Columbia police department said Allen was a guest at the Washington Hilton, where the Correspondents’ Dinner was being held.
A Facebook page listed him as C2 Education’s “teacher of the month” in December 2024 at the company’s Torrance office; C2 Education is a national private test-preparation and tutoring service for college applicants. His LinkedIn summary describes him as “a mechanical engineer and a computer scientist by Degree, an independent game developer by experience, teacher by birth.”
Allen earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2017 and a master’s degree in computer science from California State University, Dominguez Hills in 2025. Caltech confirmed a person with the same name graduated in 2017.
In 2019 he published a skill-based game on the Steam platform and registered the domain name “Bohrdom,” which is described on related pages as “loosely based on a Chemistry model” and “loosely based on reality.” While an undergraduate, he participated in Caltech’s Christian fellowship and the Nerf club; his graduation photo shows him holding a picture of himself alongside a stuffed rabbit.
Professionally, Allen has worked as a mechanical engineer for UK Controls in South Pasadena and has served as a teaching assistant at Caltech. He also competed in a Caltech robotics competition in 2016.
Records reviewed by the Los Angeles Times show that a month before the 2024 election outcome, Allen made a $25 donation to ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic candidates; that is the only political donation listed for him on Federal Election Commission records over the past decade. He is registered to vote with no party preference.
Authorities have described him as the suspect; investigations and legal processes are ongoing.