California Man Arrested in WHCA Dinner Shooting Linked to Wide Awakes Group

Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old from Torrance, California, was arrested following a shooting at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner at the Washington Hilton on Saturday night. He faces two counts of using a firearm during a crime of violence and one count of assault on an officer using a dangerous weapon.

The law enforcement agent who was shot was not seriously injured. Allen breached security at the event and is believed to have attended a "No Kings" protest in California, according to the New York Post. Officials stated that officials believe Allen traveled by train from California to Chicago and then to Washington, D.C., where he checked into the hotel as a guest.

Officials added that the investigation into the motive could take at least a couple of days.

earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2017, according to his LinkedIn profile. While at the university, he was involved in a campus Nerf gun club and a Christian student fellowship. He worked for six years at C2 Education, a company providing admissions counseling and test preparation, and was named Teacher of the Month in 2024.

Allen also developed video games on the Steam platform. A computer science professor at California State University, Dominguez Hills, told the Associated Press that Allen took several of his classes before graduating and described him as a very good student who was soft-spoken and polite.

A local ABC station in Los Angeles interviewed Allen during his senior year at the California Institute of Technology for a story about technologies to help aging adults, where he presented a prototype for an emergency brake for wheelchairs. 38-caliber semiautomatic pistol in October 2023 and a 12-gauge shotgun last year.

Security guards at his family church kept reporters away during Sunday services. Allen's father, Thomas, is listed as an elder at Grace United Reformed Church in Torrance.

Wide Awakes Allen has been linked to The Wide Awakes, a modern political group inspired by a Civil War-era organization founded in 1860 to support Abraham Lincoln's presidential election, according to the National Park Service. The original group, started by five young law clerks in Hartford, Connecticut, featured members aged 15 to 40 who wore distinctive uniforms including kepi hats, capes, and carried kerosene lamps during torchlight parades.

The group was viewed with suspicion in the South, where newspapers described its paramilitary aspects. The modern Wide Awakes network launched in 2020, organizing nationwide civic actions before and after the 2020 election. It held an anniversary march in New York City on October 3, 2020, recreating an original procession, and its imagery appeared during Alicia Keys' performance at the NFL's 2020 season kickoff.

The group's tagline is "Individually we are asleep, together we are awake," and it focuses on art-driven activism, voter engagement, and community building through chapters. The connection between Allen and the modern group remains under investigation, and it is unclear if it played any role in the incident.

Newsweek reported that the group's website frames its work as a response to a national choice between chaos or community.

A White House official confirmed to Newsweek that Allen sent a manifesto to his family minutes before the shooting, which contained anti-Trump and anti-Christian rhetoric and stated he wanted to target administration officials. The document outlined rules of engagement, specifying that Secret Service agents were targets only if necessary and should be incapacitated non-lethally if possible, while hotel security, Capitol Police, employees, and guests were not targets.

Allen chose buckshot to minimize wall penetration and casualties, and referenced grievances attributed to the Trump administration, including alleged abuses against detainees and civilians abroad.

“I've studied people like Abraham Lincoln. It's the people that make the biggest impact, they're the ones that they go after." — President Donald Trump Allen described himself as "half-black, half-white" and signed off as "Friendly Federal Assassin." The manifesto also noted inadequate security at the Washington Hilton, expressing surprise at how easily he entered armed. Authorities say the manifesto ranked potential targets. Federal campaign finance records show he contributed $25 to a Democratic Party political action committee supporting Vice President Kamala Harris for president. A yard sign at his family home supported a local candidate for judge endorsed by the Los Angeles County Democratic Party.”

Trump stated that impactful people are often targeted and compared himself to Lincoln. He added that the country had been turned around under his leadership and that the manifesto would be released later.