April 26, 2026 | 1:56 AM ET
The man who attempted to charge into the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Saturday night, which President Trump was attending, has been apprehended and taken to a local Washington, D.C., hospital. The person, named Cole Allen, rushed the security gate at the venue and was reportedly armed with at least one firearm and headed toward the main ballroom where the president was seated with the first lady.
During a press conference following the incident, United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro confirmed that Allen was being charged with “using a firearm during a crime of violence” and “assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon.”
As details begin to unfold about Allen’s motivations as well as his background, new information about his life is being uncovered.
Allen, who received his master’s degree in computer science from California State University-Dominguez Hills in 2025, was apparently a budding roboticist. During his undergraduate studies at Caltech (California Institute of Technology), he competed in and won the university’s Tridroid Cup in 2016 with four other team members. Allen and his team, called Blitzkrieg Bots, spent roughly 800 hours building the robots for the competition before coming away with the top prize.
Video (above) of the California competition shows Cole Allen attending to one of the robot displays with his team during the university event. The recording is part of a 2016 KABC-TV Los Angeles report covering the tech contest. What led Allen to move from the realm of robotics and computer science to alleged political violence is still unclear.
Cover image via KABC-TV Los Angeles
