The shooting at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington on Saturday, which was also attended by US President Donald Trump, is a leading topic for a number of American and British publications.
The gunman who broke into the security perimeter of the White House Correspondents' Dinner, who was neutralized after a shootout with Secret Service agents, wanted to target senior government officials, including possibly the US president himself, the “Washington Post“ reports.
In a message sent to his relatives minutes before the attack, he described himself as a “friendly federal assassin“ and has been sharply critical of the Trump administration's policies, the publication said.
Although authorities have not yet officially released the man's name, sources familiar with the investigation have identified him as 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen of Torrance, California, according to the Washington Post. Social media accounts that appear to belong to Allen describe him as a freelance video game designer and part-time teacher.
Allen is believed to have first traveled by train from California to Chicago and then to Washington, before checking into a Hilton hotel. in the US capital, where he brought two guns he had purchased earlier, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The attacker managed to get through several security perimeters at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner before being neutralized by Secret Service agents outside the ballroom, where President Trump and several other high-ranking federal officials were present, the newspaper said.
The foiled attack was the latest in a series of cases in which armed men managed to get dangerously close to Trump, which has once again raised questions about the president's safety and security at a time of strong political division in the country and fierce conflicts abroad, the newspaper commented.
About 10 minutes before Allen opened fire on Saturday night, he sent his family a manifesto full of criticism of Trump, in which he also described his surprise at the "level of incompetence" of the security on site, writes the British newspaper “Telegraph“.
The thirty-one-year-old man, armed with a hunting rifle, a pistol and several knives, broke through a checkpoint at the “Hilton“ hotel in Washington and managed to get within about 90 meters of the American president, the publication indicates. In a message to his family, he said that Iranian hitmen could have shown up at the event with a machine gun and "no one would have noticed." The Secret Service will now have to explain how a gunman managed to get so close to the table where the president, first lady and senior cabinet figures were sitting, the Telegraph reported. In his manifesto, Allen listed a list of targets he wanted to shoot, ranked from highest to lowest priority, with Trump administration officials at the top of the list, the Guardian reported. Several US media outlets have quoted anonymous officials as saying that Allen's previous social media posts contained anti-Trump statements similar to the content of the manifesto, the publication said. Although the manifesto does not mentions Donald Trump's name, the text expresses dissatisfaction with a number of administration actions and recent events, including US strikes on drug-smuggling vessels in the eastern Pacific, the newspaper notes.
In an interview with “60 Minutes“ yesterday, Trump called the attacker “a sick man“ and was angry with host Norah O’Donnell for reading parts of the manifesto on air, the “Guardian“ reports.
In another interview, the president spoke of Saturday's events in an indifferent tone, saying he did not feel particularly worried at the time. “I was not worried“, Trump said in response to a question about whether he had been worried after hearing the shots. “I understand life. We live in a crazy world,“, he added.