We were there: Hearing gunfire and ducking for cover at the D.C. gala shooting

WASHINGTON— The annual White House Correspondents Assn. as just outside the Washington Hilton ballroom. As dinner was getting underway, a Times reporter had just entered the men’s room when he heard a handful of loud explosions.

“Shooter!” someone shouted. “Get down! Shots fired!”

As the event turned from a celebration of freedom of expression into a scene of horror, thousands of journalists and politicians began hiding in the ballroom.

The Times had six reporters at the dinner, sitting at a table to the right of the stage.

Times reporter Gavin Quinton, who was in the restroom, heard the gunshots around 8.30pm. He had left The Times’ desk minutes earlier, walking past the TV cameras to the raised terrace next to the ballroom’s security entrance. He crossed paths with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer.

Outside the restroom, Cole Tomas Allen, 31, passed the metal detectors, he would later show, and came within a few feet of the ballroom entrance.

Five or six shots fired by Secret Service agents missed Allen before the agents shot him down near a staircase It leads to the main floor, where Trump sits visibly prominently.

A federal agent was struck in the chest by gunfire, but he was wearing a bulletproof vest and was not seriously injured.

Quinton was squatting near the corner of the restroom. Others rushed into the room, including three hotel security guards who rushed themselves in so quickly that their backs hit the tiled wall. Within minutes, a Secret Service agent positioned himself in the bathroom entrance with his gun drawn.

“Taking roll call?” he asked.

“A dozen – no, 15!” Someone shouted.

People were locked in bathroom stalls. Some tried to overcome poor cell phone service to call loved ones. A mix of tuxedo-wearing attendees, uniformed hotel clerks and waiters stood confused, trying to piece together what had happened.

“He had a gun,” said one of the hotel security guards.

Another witness told Quinton that he initially thought Blitzer was the shooter’s target.

“I look around and as I open the door, I hear gunshots. When I turn around, I see him,” the man said of the gunman. “I look again and say, ‘Oh, they just shot someone.’”

Blitzer, who was laid on the ground by the police during the incident, later said: “The first thing that came to my mind was whether he was going to shoot me.”

As the group speculated about whether the attacker had died in the barrage, one man wondered aloud whether the incident would continue. Quinton, who initially thought the gunman must have been killed, answered no.

“From where?” the man asked. “A bad guy who died. It was a good ending. Seriously.”

The Washington Hilton has hosted the annual reporters’ dinner for more than 60 years. Known locally as “Nerd Prom,” the event now comes with a series of pre-parties and after-parties.

This was the president’s first appearance at the dinner since 2015; he skipped it for the entirety of his first term.

Questions now surround security protocols. Guests faced a mini-screening — a rapid flash of a paper ticket — as they entered the hotel on Saturday and headed up the escalator to the only area with magnetometers, where bags were also searched.

Trump entered the ballroom at 8:15 p.m. while the Marine band was playing “Hail to the Chief.”

Twenty minutes later, videos showed, Secret Service officers in ballistic vests and long guns shouting instructions to clear the way as they rushed into the ballroom and stage.

An agent led Vice President J.D. Vance away. Another accompanied Trump, who appeared to be stuck on his way out.

Other officials (Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, FBI Director Kash Patel, Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller) were also quickly removed.

At first, nothing seemed amiss at The Times’s ballroom table.

The waiters had just started clearing the plates of spring pea and burrata salad. Reporters didn’t hear the gunshots, but they watched as the room grew quiet and others fell from their seats and began ducking under the floor-length white tablecloths.

A reporter lost his shoe in the process and was afraid an armed man would spot him. He dragged it under the table.

They stayed put for a few minutes, texting their loved ones and waiting for everything to be okay, but none of it came.

Reporters heard someone shouting from under the tablecloth, “God bless America! USA!” he heard himself shouting. They were afraid that he was the one who shot.

It turned out that it was Dan ScavinoWhite House deputy chief of staff. The cheering didn’t hold up.

Finally, others could be heard talking loudly and dishes clinking. Guests began to peek out from under their tables and rise cautiously. Uneasy laughter vibrated through the ballroom.

Cell phone service inside the ballroom was spotty. At first there was confusion as to whether there had been a shooting or whether the plates falling to the ground were mistaken for gunfire.

“I thought it was a tray coming down,” Trump said later.

Just before 9 p.m., Weijia Jiang, senior White House correspondent for CBS News and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, told guests the program would “go on for a while.”

Half an hour later, Jiang returned to the stage and announced that law enforcement had requested the guests to leave the building. He said Trump told him no one was injured and that he, the first lady and members of the Cabinet were safe.

In his closing remarks, Jiang said journalism is a public service “because when there is an emergency, we rush towards the crisis rather than away from it.”

“And in a night when we think about the freedoms of the 1st Amendment, we must also think about how fragile they are,” he said. “I saw y’all reporting and that’s what we’re doing.”

Law enforcement and media leaders offered conflicting guidance. Quinton was among the first to evacuate the building, but the vast majority of guests waited longer inside.

On his way out, he noticed that the metal detector had been partially dismantled when the shooter entered.

Quinton was held face down next to the shooter, who was lying on the ground near the staircase, just about 20 feet from the bathroom entrance. He held up his phone and recorded a short, shaky video of the scene before security forced him out of the hotel and onto the street.

The full range of emotions were on display when security finally ordered everyone to evacuate. Women in aprons ran away in fear. A man was sobbing into the sleeves of his night jacket.

Photos on social media show others stopping to take selfies, too. Some drank the wine straight from the bottle.

Quinton spotted the presidential motorcade outside the hotel lobby around 8:45 p.m. Around the same time, an ambulance arrived as approximately 100 event attendees were being escorted out of the secure event area.

Multiple law enforcement officers were at the hotel as guests exited the building, including agents from the Secret Service, ATF, FBI and Department of Homeland Security. Celebrities and politicians were replaced by National Guard soldiers at the red carpet entrance.

Outside, Metropolitan police took people north to Columbia Road NW. Hungry tuxedo-clad guests crowded into a nearby 7-Eleven. The dinner’s main course – prime beef and Maine lobster – had not been served.

Later at the White House, Trump said the event would be rescheduled.

“We won’t let anyone take over our society,” he told reporters rushing to the news conference, still wearing an apron and black tie. “We’re not going to cancel things because we can’t do that.”

Meanwhile, the night’s after-parties continued despite organizers trying a more somber tone. For example, MS Now told RSVPs that its “After Hours Democracy” party would be “a space where friends and colleagues can come together.”

Independent journalist Tara Palmeri He shared a photo on X image of a party filled with blue mood lighting.

“People were still partying last night, still attending WHCD after-parties,” he wrote. “Epstein corruption, the escalating Iran conflict, and an active shooter… and Washington… has moved on. Cognitive dissonance is the system itself.”

By Sunday morning, the Washington Hilton appeared to be back to normal, save for the presence of journalists who were using the hotel as a backdrop for their live footage.