Cole Tomas Allen, WHCD gunman mocked lack of security on every leg of cross-country journey in manifesto: ‘Actually insane’, as he outlines rules of engagement during attack.
Cole Tomas Allen, White House Correspondents’ Dinner gunman mocked lack of security at 2,500 person event as he outlined ‘rules for attack,’ in his anti-Trump manifesto, ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’.
The suspected White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooter mocked the lack of security at Saturday night’s event and on his journey to Washington in a manifesto.
Cole Tomas Allen, 31, a teacher from Torrance, California, had attempted to run past a security checkpoint while armed with a shotgun, a handgun and several knives.
WHCD gunman wanted to fix everything wrong with the world, handwritten notes reveal
He exchanged fire with Secret Service agents before they tackled him to the ground and arrested him. One agent was struck in his bulletproof vest and is expected to recover. No one else was harmed.
Allen’s manifesto, which was obtained and published in full by the New York Post, detailed his reasoning for the attack, his ‘rules of engagement’ and a ‘statement’ about how little security he encountered.
‘What the hell is the Secret Service doing?’ Allen wrote in a post script to his manifesto, which he titled, ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’.
‘I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo. What I got (who knows, maybe they’re pranking me!) is nothing,’ he continued.
The teacher described a ‘sense of arrogance’ at the Washington Hilton Hotel, where the dinner was held.
‘The security at the event is all outside… because apparently no one thought about what happens if someone checks in the day before,’ Allen wrote.
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Allen who had traveled by train across country and who had registered as a guest at the Washington Hilton days earlier further described the security as ‘lacking.’
Wrote Allen, ‘…if I was an Iranian agent, instead of an American citizen, I could have brought a damn Ma Deuce in here and no one would have noticed shit.’
Ma Deuce is a nickname for the M2 Browning .50-caliber machine gun.
‘I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat,’ he wrote.
‘The security at the event is all outside, focused on protestors and current arrivals, because apparently no one thought about what happens if someone checks in the day before.’
Prioritized targets and rules of engagement
Allen in his manifesto stated that he had wanted to take action for a long time, to ‘fix everything that was wrong with the world,’ ‘but this is the first real opportunity I’ve had to do something about it.’
He then went on to explain his ‘rules of engagement’ and outlined who his targets were.
‘Administration officials (not including Mr. Patel): they are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest,’ Allen wrote. It is unclear why Kash Patel, the director of the FBI, was spared from his hit list.
Allen then listed other targets in order of priority. He wrote that Secret Service agents who get in his way were ‘targets only if necessary,’ and that he hoped to incapacitate them ‘non-lethally if possible.’
‘I hope they’re wearing body armor because center mass with shotguns messes up people who *aren’t*,’ he wrote. Allen did later shoot one Secret Service agent in a bulletproof vest.
He also wrote that hotel security, capitol police and national guardsmen would only be targets if they shot at him first.
