White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting suspect asks judge to remove him from suicide precautions in jail
The suspect accused of trying to assassinate President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last weekend has asked a judge to take him off suicide precautions while in jail.
Cole Thomas Allen allegedly rushed security guards and fired a shotgun, hitting one Secret Service agent outside the black-tie gala on April 25.
Allen, 31, was assigned a “safe cell” equipped with padded walls and 24-hour lockdown procedures after he was booked on April 27. He was required to wear “a vest akin to a strait jacket,” according to a filing by his lawyers obtained by Reuters.
He was later downgraded to “suicide precautions,” meaning he could not make phone calls or receive visits from anyone outside of his legal team. The precautions also limit his time outside of his cell to visits from his legal team and showers. During both instances, he is required to have an escort, according to the filing.
On Friday, a nurse recommended that the “suicide precautions” be dropped, but they remained in place for a visit with Allen’s legal team that day, the filing states.
Allen’s status “amounts to punishment” and bars him from being able to access certain resources within the jail, including a tablet that would “permit him to communicate with loved ones outside of the jail,” the filing states.
The annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner was thrown into chaos after Allen rushed past security and fired at least one gunshot. He was reportedly looking to target members of the Trump administration, he wrote in a message to family members before the attack, according to court documents.
President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump and other high-profile figures were rushed from the Washington Hilton ballroom, as journalists, politicians and other guests scrambled to take cover.
Authorities say Allen rushed past security outside the event and opened fire, hitting a Secret Service agent. He was quickly subdued by officers and taken into custody.
No guests at the gala were hurt, and the event was subsequently canceled.
Allen, a computer engineer from Torrance, California, arrived at the Washington Hilton hotel ahead of the event, after traveling by train from the West Coast to Chicago on April 21, and then taking another train to the U.S. capital on April 24, according to Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C.
He was carrying an array of weapons at the time of the attack, including a 12-gauge pump-action Mossberg shotgun, a .38 semi-automatic pistol and “at least three knives and all kinds of paraphernalia,” Pirro said.
The president posted surveillance footage of the suspect allegedly running past the hotel’s security checkpoint. Trump said he did so for “transparency” and to highlight the speed with which agents reacted to the threat.
In his manifesto, the suspect allegedly mocked the hotel’s security, saying it was focused solely on the hotel’s perimeter.
