Fitzpatrick on WHCA Dinner shooting: ‘Everybody is responsible to lower the volume’
“I’m just glad everyone is okay,” said Representative Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA-01).
Fitzpatrick was a guest at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Saturday, April 25, when a man tried to assassinate President Donald Trump and others in his administration.
His fiancée, Jacqui Heinrich, senior White House correspondent for Fox News, was on the dais, seated next to Vice President JD Vance.
“My first thought was Jacqui,” Fitzpatrick told The Independence.
While some people thought the noises were just dropped plates or trays, Fitzpatrick immediately recognized they were gunshots.
“I was at table 82, which was in the center of the room near the back toward the door,” he said. Moments before, “Wolf Blitzer had walked by and chatted with me on his way to the bathroom,” said Fitzpatrick.
(Blitzer, of CNN, later gave an account on air of an officer throwing him to the floor in the hallway near the shooter, covering him, and holding him down.)
“I heard the gunshots,” said Fitzpatrick, a former FBI agent. “It was a familiar sound to me.” While some people thought the noise was a tray being dropped, “I knew very well it was gunshots. It’s a very unique audible.”
He could also tell the first shot came from a shotgun, followed by shots from handguns.
Fitzpatrick remained calm and made sure everyone seated with him sought protection underneath their table.
“I got everyone at my table to get under the table,” he said.
When he deemed it safe to come out from underneath, Fitzpatrick looked for Heinrich and didn’t see her. He ran up to the dais and talked to Secret Service agents, who assured him that she was alright and backstage, but they would not let him go back to see her.
“The Secret Service assured me everyone was OK,” Fitzpatrick said.
“Security was a problem at that hotel,” the congressman added. That’s because the Washington Hilton is a hotel with 1,100 rooms, many with guests who were not attending the event, the security checkpoint could not be set up outside the hotel, but rather just outside the ballroom, he said.
“That created a problem,” he observed.
Indeed, television images from that night showed the alleged assailant, Cole Thomas Allen, rushing by the checkpoint before agents tackled him. One agent was hit by a bullet; he was reportedly protected by his ballistic vest.
In federal court on Monday, Allen was arraigned on charges of attempted assassination of the president of the United States, said acting U.S. Attorney Todd Blanche in a press conference. Allen was also charged with interstate transportation of a firearm to commit a felony and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence. If convicted, the 31-year-old California teacher could be sentenced to up to life in prison, said Blanche.
Blanche said Allen traveled to Washington, D.C. by train and had made a reservation at the Washington Hilton for April 24 through April 26.
Fitzpatrick believes that political rhetoric needs to be toned down.
“Everybody is responsible to lower the volume and bridge the gap,” said Fitzpatrick, a member of the House Problem Solvers Caucus, who was named the most bipartisan Republican by The Hill in 2024.
“A lot of people get really, really riled up,” said Fitzpatrick.
“We have the greatest country in the world,” he said, noting that people from all over the globe want to come and live in the United States.
The county is nearing its 250th anniversary. However, the system is also “fragile.”
“Our system of government can’t sustain the vitriol,” said Fitzpatrick.
People need to talk to each other rather than resort to violence.
“People need to respect the results of elections and sit down and work things out,” he said. And there’s a problem when anger goes “from virtual to action.”
Fitzpatrick noted that earlier that evening, he walked by “large groups of protesters” with “nasty insults” on their signs just outside the hotel. They have a right to protest, he said.
The annual WHCD itself celebrates the “First Amendment and freedom of the press.”
Linda Stein is an award-winning journalist who’s written for newspapers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Arizona. Before joining Fideri News Network, she was the news editor for Delaware Valley Journal. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from Temple University and earned her undergraduate degree from Arcadia University. Contact her at lstein@fiderinews.com.
