Shazam! star Zachary Levi has spoken about the reported attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, revealing what he found most “confusing” as the situation unfolded.
On Saturday night (April 25), President Donald Trump attended the White House Correspondents’ Dinner for the first time during his presidency. But not long after the event began, five gunshots were heard inside the Hilton hotel ballroom. The president and senior officials were quickly moved out, and the gathering was later called off.
Authorities said the suspected would-be attacker, 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allan, was detained by law enforcement before reaching the ballroom and the president.
“We were sitting at the table and there was some loud banging that definitely caught my attention,” Levi, 45, told USA Today on Saturday April 24.
Levi described a rapid shift in the room’s atmosphere as people reacted to the noise: “The next thing we saw, everybody started to turn and drop.” He said Secret Service agents came in quickly to secure key individuals while many guests “hide under tables”.
The actor said the part that left him most uncertain came later, once the immediate panic began to ease.
As people started “popping up from beneath the tables,” Levi recalled, attendees were informed the program might still go ahead.
Speaking to USA Today on Saturday, he said: “We just recently were told they are going to continue with the dinner with some updates soon. I don’t know, it’s very confusing because if it was an actual active live shooting then I don’t know why we would necessarily be continuing with the dinner.”
Although Trump and members of the Administration initially wanted the dinner to proceed, the event was ultimately cancelled amid safety concerns and is expected to be rescheduled.
Allan is expected to be arraigned in federal court on Monday (April 27).
After the incident, Trump addressed the public in a press conference, saying he felt “honored” while reflecting on the motivations behind attacks on prominent figures: “I’ve studied assassinations and I must tell you, the most impactful people – the people that do the most… the people that make the biggest impact, those are the ones they go after.
“They don’t go after the ones that don’t do much because they like it that way. When you look at the people… whether it was an attempt or successful attempt, they’re very impactful people… They’re big names.
“I hate to say I’m honored by that but I’ve done a lot. We’ve taken this country and we were a laughing stock for years, now we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world. We’ve changed this country and there’s a lot of people that are not happy about that.”