Pellet in Secret Service vest links suspect to White House shooting

A buckshot pellet intertwined with the fiber of a Secret Service officer’s vest is the newest forensic link federal officials are using to tie Cole Tomas Allen to the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner shooting. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said the pellet came from Allen’s Mossberg pump-action shotgun, a claim that strengthens the government’s account but does not, by itself, settle every disputed detail that would have to be tested in court.

Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, was arraigned on April 27, 2026, after the April 25 attack in Washington. The U.S. Department of Justice charged him with attempted assassination of the president, transportation of a firearm and ammunition in interstate commerce with intent to commit a felony, and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence. Prosecutors say Allen traveled by train from near Los Angeles to Chicago and then to Washington, and that he had reserved a room at the Washington Hilton on April 6 for April 24 through April 26 before arriving on April 24.

Officials say Allen was carrying both a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun and a Rock Island Armory 1911 .38 caliber pistol when he was stopped. A Secret Service officer drew his service weapon and fired multiple times at Allen, who fell to the ground and suffered minor injuries but was not shot. The officer survived because he was wearing a bullet-resistant vest, and prosecutors say the pellet embedded in that vest helps establish that the shot came from Allen’s shotgun rather than from friendly fire.

The forensic claim matters because it speaks to the core question prosecutors will have to prove: who fired at whom, and with what intent. A pellet fused to the vest’s fibers can support the government’s version of the shooting, but it is still one piece of a larger evidentiary case that includes witness accounts, firearms analysis and surveillance video. Pirro said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the government can now establish the pellet came from the defendant’s weapon, and she said Allen “had every intention” to kill the officer.

Prosecutors have also released video they say shows Allen casing the Washington Hilton area the day before the attack and, in their view, firing at the officer as he rushed through security toward the dinner. The White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner has grown into one of Washington’s biggest gatherings since its origins in 1914, drawing presidents, first ladies, journalists, celebrities and political leaders, which made the security breach especially significant. The case now turns on whether the government can convert those public assertions and forensic findings into proof beyond a reasonable doubt.