(WASHINGTON) — Cole Allen, the suspect in the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner shooting, appears to have been a highly intelligent person, albeit shy, and was at one point a devoted Christian, according to conversations with individuals from his past.
The California native was tackled by law enforcement after the gunfire Saturday night inside the Washington, D.C., Hilton hotel, where thousands of journalists as well as President Donald Trump and members of his Cabinet were gathered for the annual dinner. Allen did not reach the ballroom, where the dinner was underway. A Secret Service member was shot during the incident, but the bullet hit the agent’s protective vest, officials said.
Allen, 31, faces three felony counts of attempted assassination of the President of the United States, transportation of a firearm and ammunition over state lines with the intent to commit a felony and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence.
Allen’s former pastor, Rev. Movses Janbazian, struggled to square the man described by federal officials as an aspiring killer with the hard-working student who attended sermons each week at Pasadena United Reformed Church in South Pasadena.
“Nice, gentle, smart young man,” Janbazian told ABC News. “It’s obviously very surprising to hear his name appear in the news in this way.”
Janbazian said Allen joined the United Reformed Church congregation during his time at Caltech, where he studied mechanical engineering. Allen would frequently bring coursework to church — evidence, he said, of what a “competitive program” he was enrolled in. Allen graduated from Caltech in 2017 and he received a master’s degree from California State University, Dominguez Hills in 2025.
Paul Thompson, a neighbor of the Allen family, described Allen as “not very sociable,” but maintained that he “had no idea that he was capable of that kind of violence.”
“I’ve seen him a hundred times coming and going … but I’ve never had a conversation with him,” Thompson said.
Allen’s father, on the other hand, was “kind of like the neighborhood mayor — knows everybody by first name,” Thompson said.
“Everybody likes him. He’s a very sociable guy,” Thompson said of Allen’s father.
“This is going to be very, very difficult … on his family,” Thompson added.
Allen was most recently working as a tutor and students said he demonstrated a knack for competently teaching a wide range of subjects. A group of high school students who were tutored by Allen shared a statement describing him as “generally very intelligent” and “normal and friendly.”
Joel Devereux, the father-in-law of Allen’s brother, described Allen to ABC News as “very quiet, polite, smart” in their limited interactions, but said he seemed “distant from his family” and “doesn’t normally hang around them.”
Allen — who officials say traveled by train from California to D.C. — allegedly left a note which said that administration officials were his targets, “not including [FBI Director Kash] Mr. Patel,” and were “prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest,” according to the criminal complaint against him.
Allen allegedly wrote that Secret Service agents were targets “only if necessary, and to be incapacitated non-lethally if possible,” the complaint said.
The note said hotel security, Capitol police and the National Guard were “not targets if at all possible (aka unless they shoot at me),” and hotel employees and guests were “not targets at all,” the complaint said.
The note said he would “go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary,” adding, ‘I really hope it doesn’t come to that,” according to the complaint.
Allen appeared in court on Monday and did not enter a plea. He’s set to return to court for a detention hearing on Thursday.
ABC News’ Susan Zalkind contributed to this report.
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