Secret Service Officer Shoots at White House Correspondents' Dinner

A Secret Service officer was shot in the chest during an attempted attack at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner at the Washington Hilton last Saturday. The officer survived due to a bulletproof vest, according to officials. The suspect, identified as Cole Tomas Allen, 31, charged through a security checkpoint armed with a semi-automatic handgun, a pump-action shotgun, and three knives.

Security video released shows a police dog alerting to the gunman in a stairwell seconds before he bolted past agents with a rifle. The footage captures the suspect running through the checkpoint, followed by muzzle flashes from an officer's firearm.

Authorities reported that the officer fired five times at the suspect but did not hit him.

Initial statements indicated the suspect shot the officer at close range. However, court documents filed by prosecutors do not explicitly allege that Allen fired the shot that struck the officer. The criminal complaint describes Allen approaching with a long gun, followed by a loud gunshot, but stops short of attributing the shot to him.

>"We wanna get that right, so we're still looking at that," Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a news conference on Monday. Prosecutors noted that five shots were fired in total, including one from the suspect's shotgun. Ballistics analysis is ongoing to determine the source of the shot that hit the officer.

A former US attorney suggested that any early inaccuracies could complicate the prosecution.

The Secret Service director stated on Thursday that all evidence points to the suspect shooting the officer at point-blank range with a shotgun. This came alongside the release of additional security footage showing the four-second charge through security.