JokersUpdates.com: News Stand - "The FBI has not found the fragment that pierced a Secret Service officer’s bullet-proof vest at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, leaving it unable to say for certain

that the armed attacker shot the officer or how he was injured..."

Apr. 28, 2026, 1:30 PM EDT
By
Carol Leonnig
,
Mychael Schnell
and
Ken Dilanian
The FBI has not found the fragment that pierced a Secret Service officer’s bulletproof vest at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, leaving investigators unable to say for certain whether the armed attacker shot the officer or how he was injured, according to two people briefed on the probe.

Law enforcement agents on the scene Saturday believe Cole Tomas Allen, the suspect who breached the dinner’s final checkpoint, fired his shotgun and struck the officer with buckshot from his weapon, according to one of the people, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the ongoing probe. A check of Allen’s shotgun showed that he discharged a shell but did not reload, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters Monday.

But a mystery surrounds Allen’s use of his weapon — and the scuffle and shooting just above the Washington Hilton ballroom, where President Donald Trump and many senior administration officials had gathered for the dinner.

Allen was charged on Monday with attempting to assassinate the president of the United States, as well as transportation of a firearm over state lines and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence.

On Saturday, Allen sprinted through a final screening checkpoint just above an open stairway to the ballroom, prompting one Secret Service officer from the uniformed division to shoot five rounds at the fleeing man. Investigators collected the firearms of all Secret Service officers and agents on the scene and found no evidence that anyone else fired their weapons, one law enforcement official said.

Here are other new details MS NOW has learned about the incident:

No officers or agents were stationed in the stairwell that Allen used to get to the main hotel floor and just steps from the checkpoint he breached. Investigators’ review of hotel video shows Allen reached the checkpoint, where magnetometers screened guests for weapons, by walking down the stairwell 10 floors down from his hotel room, one of the people said.

https://bsky.app/profile/justinbaragona.bsky.social/post/3mkl6ey3gsc2y

Edited (04/28/26 12:23 PM)