New Footage Reveals Secret Service Stopped Gunman Near Trump at Hilton

Newly released surveillance footage shed stark new light Wednesday on the seconds-long confrontation between a gunman and the U.S. Secret Service at the Washington Hilton during Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, where President Donald Trump and roughly 2,000 guests were inside the ballroom when shots rang out around 8:35 p.m. apnews +1. Federal prosecutors have charged the suspect, 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California, with attempting to assassinate the president and multiple firearms offenses cnn.

The high‑resolution video, reviewed and published by the Washington Post, showed Allen sprinting down a corridor toward a Secret Service security checkpoint on the floor above the ballroom, raising a shotgun in the direction of an officer, who then drew his service weapon and fired repeatedly as Allen bolted past washingtonpost. No shots from Allen are clearly visible on the footage, but investigators say a used shell was recovered from the shotgun and a Secret Service officer was struck in the chest area, likely saved by a bulletproof vest and possibly a cellphone in its pocket nbcnews +1.

What the New Footage Reveals — and What Remains Unclear

The surveillance video provided the clearest visual account so far: Allen covered roughly 60 feet at a running speed estimated near 9 mph, blowing past magnetometers and agents as one officer pivoted, fired at least four times in about a second and colleagues rushed to tackle the suspect near a stairwell leading toward the ballroom washingtonpost +1. Allen, armed with a 12‑gauge pump shotgun, a .38‑caliber handgun and knives, was subdued, stripped of his weapons and taken into custody with minor injuries; no guests were shot, and the president, first lady and vice president were rapidly evacuated from the dais below cnn +1.

Despite the images, key forensic questions remained unresolved. The officer who was hit was treated and released from hospital, but the FBI has not yet recovered the fragment that pierced his vest, and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said it was still unclear whether Allen’s shotgun blast, ricocheting buckshot or even friendly fire was responsible, noting that “we want to get that right” in ongoing ballistics work nbcnews +1. Audio analysis of ballroom livestreams captured six gunshot sounds in roughly 1.4 seconds, a timeline investigators are now trying to match with the video and physical evidence washingtonpost.

Security Success or Serious Breach?

Administration officials and Secret Service leaders argued the incident demonstrated that multilayered security protections functioned as intended, stopping a lone attacker short of the packed ballroom in a venue that has been extensively modeled since the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan at the same hotel ksat +1. “Tonight we saw exactly what our brave men and women do each and every day,” Secret Service Director Sean Curran said, praising agents who “ran toward danger” to shield Trump and others fbi.

But security experts and some lawmakers questioned how Allen, who traveled cross-country by train, checked into the Hilton and allegedly wrote screeds about targeting Trump administration officials, was able to reach a level directly above the president with a shotgun and handgun before being challenged cnn +1. Analysts pointed to potential vulnerabilities in hotel access controls, stairwell monitoring and coordination between the Secret Service and local authorities, warning that the near miss added to a troubling pattern of recent assassination attempts and plots against Trump ksat +1.

The Bigger Picture

The dinner shooting, captured in a cascade of official video, social clips and now high‑definition surveillance frames, has become a fresh test of both presidential security and public trust in the explanations that follow. With Allen facing an attempted-assassination charge and investigators still unable to say with certainty whose round struck the officer guarding the ballroom, the case is likely to drive renewed scrutiny of how close a gunman came to a sitting president at one of Washington’s most studied venues—and whether the protective system that ultimately stopped him needs to be fundamentally redesigned.