Cole Thomas Allen, the White House Correspondents' Dinner bomber, has been formally charged with the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump. Appearing in court today for the first time since Saturday's dramatic events, he was charged with two additional counts in a brief preliminary hearing: carrying a firearm and ammunition with intent to commit a felony and discharging a firearm during the commission of a violent crime.
The 31-year-old California engineer appeared in court wearing a blue jumpsuit and was sworn in before Washington District Judge Matthew J. Sharbaugh, agreeing to be represented by public defenders Tezira Abe and Eugene Ohm. He listened to arguments from prosecutors Jocelyn Ballantine and Charles Jones, who provided several photos of the weapons he allegedly brought to Washington by train from California. "On April 25, he attempted to assassinate the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump," said National Security Attorney Ballantine . The prosecution has requested that Allen remain in pretrial detention, as he faces life in prison if convicted of the attempted assassination of the president, but a hearing on his request has been scheduled for Thursday.
The criminal proceedings against the attacker have begun, with the defense team emphasizing that the defendant has no criminal record or convictions, pointing to the uncertainty surrounding the motives behind an act that could have escalated into a massacre . The U.S. Secret Service questioned the attacker's sister, who lives in Rockville, Maryland, with her family. She reportedly told agents that the man had made extremist statements and politically radical comments in the past, expressing a desire to do "something" to address what he described as the world's problems.
In this regard, a 2017 interview with ABC LA emerged, in which the man, still a student at CalTech, was attending a conference on aging and said he had devised a new method to make wheelchairs safer. "The idea behind this project is to prevent any movement," he stated. "Wheelchair brakes tend to lock the wheels, but they don't anchor the chair to the floor." These good intentions seem in line with the testimonies of those who have interacted with him.
A former professor described him as "kind-hearted" and said he was "shocked" to hear the news. Bin Tang, of the Computer Science Department at California State University, described him as "a truly excellent student. He always sat in the front row of class," present and engaged, the teacher said.
Allen's students also expressed shock and dismay. "We were shocked to learn of the terrifying incident that occurred during the White House Correspondents' Dinner. We are cooperating fully with law enforcement to assist them in their investigation. Violence is never the answer," said a statement released late Sunday evening by a group of high school students who had received private lessons from the engineer.
Los Angeles County Prosecutor Paul Thompson, a neighbor of Cole Thomas Allen's family, described the 31-year-old's parents as "good people" in an email to CNN . Allen, US media reported, left a manifesto with the family calling himself a "Friendly Federal Assassin" and outlining plans to target senior Trump administration officials present at the event.
(Unioneonline)