We examine a school bus shooting in Pennsylvania, how the federal BUILD 250 Act would cut Safe Streets and Roads for All funding, and transportation’s role in student absenteeism.

Speaker, author and branding expert Bruce Turkel shares why it’s important for school bus operations to build a brand in an age of increasing multi-modality, discusses leveraging emotions over facts to reach the right audience, and previews his musical STN EXPO West training in July.

Read more about operations.

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WASHINGTON — Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche argued in a court filing that a shooting Saturday in the vicinity of the White House further proves the need for an East Wing ballroom with “a heavy steel, drone proof roof, missile resistant and drone proof columns, bullet, ballistic, and blast proof glass,” among other features.

A gunman opened fire at a U.S. Secret Service checkpoint at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue and was killed when agents returned fire. One bystander was also shot and injured, according to the Secret Service. 

President Donald Trump was inside the White House during the incident but was unharmed, and no ongoing operations were impacted, according to the agency.

“This second attack on the President this month underscores the critical need for top level, state of the art security at the White House, including the Ballroom, a knitted, unified, cohesive part of the East Wing Project, which is vital for National Security, and is being constructed to ensure that the President can perform his constitutional duties in a safe and heavily secured facility,” Blanche argued.

The acting attorney general, Trump’s former personal defense lawyer, filed the supplemental brief Sunday opposing a federal court order that temporarily halted any above-ground construction on the ballroom.

Shooting at press dinner

The proposed ballroom “will provide a ‘SAFE HAVEN’ from attackers such as the one last night, and on April 25th,” Blanche wrote, referring to the gunman who opened fire at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last month.

The alleged shooter, Cole Tomas Allen, who pleaded not guilty, is charged with attempting to assassinate the president and is being held in jail in Washington, D.C., awaiting trial. 

The Trump administration and his supporters in Congress amped up calls for a secure ballroom following the shooting at the historic annual dinner where Trump, the first lady and several Cabinet officials safely evacuated.

But skepticism among some Senate Republicans of using taxpayer dollars has all but scuttled a $1 billion Secret Service funding proposal — $220 million of which was earmarked for the ballroom.

Trump maintains the ballroom will be funded by private donors and routinely speaks about the project at unrelated events.

Drone port, sniper facilities

Blanche slammed the lawsuit against the White House construction project as “meritless.” The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed the suit in December, less than two months after Trump demolished the White House East Wing to make way for the large structure. 

The lawsuit, Blanche argued, “has been a great attack on our Country in that the Military, Secret Service, and Law Enforcement are not happy that all of these Top Secret features have been revealed to potential enemies, criminals, and all others, including the fact that there will be a major drone port and Government sniper facilities on the heavily secured roof of the Ballroom.”

The proposed ballroom is slated to have “bomb shelters, a state of the art hospital and medical facilities, Top Secret military installations, structures, and equipment,” according to the court filing.

Trump posted an image of the filing on his Truth Social platform Monday morning.

The president also thanked the Secret Service on Truth Social in the wee hours of Sunday. 

“This event is one month removed from the (White House Correspondents’ Dinner) shooting, and goes to show how important it is, for all future Presidents, to get, what will be, the most safe and secure space of its kind ever built in Washington, D.C. The National Security of our Country demands it!” he wrote.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It’s been over six years since Tracy Cole learned that her 17-year-old son Alvin had become the third person killed by Joseph Mensah, at that time a Wauwatosa police officer. Alvin’s death in February 2020 was followed a few months later by the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis officers, fueling months of protests and clashes with the Wauwatosa Police Department, followed by years of litigation in court. 

The Cole family is finalizing a confidential settlement over Alvin’s killing, and his mother has been reflecting on her personal journey to find solace amidst grief. The settlement, coming after two hung juries and as a third trial neared, will not come out of Mensah’s pocket despite what his attorneys implied during the trials, the Cole family’s lawyers told the Wisconsin Examiner. 

“We haven’t had time to grieve yet but it’s coming along,” Tracy Cole told the Examiner in an exclusive interview. The settlement, she said, brings some “closure to my family.” 

Alvin Cole was killed in February 2020 after a foot chase at Wauwatosa’s Mayfair Mall. The teen and his friends left the mall after being involved in a noisy quarrel, during which witnesses told police that a handgun had been displayed. The group ran as officers intercepted them outside the mall, with Mensah arriving in an unmarked squad car without first announcing his presence on the police radio. 

As Cole ran away from officers and mall security a single gunshot rang out and Cole fell to the ground, having shot himself in the forearm. Mensah shot at Cole five times shortly thereafter, while Cole was on his hands and knees listening to officers yell contradictory commands,  “Drop the gun” and “Don’t move!” 

Mensah told police investigators that Cole pointed a gun at him while he was on the ground. Further testimony gathered by the Cole family’s attorney’s, however, found that a security guard and Wauwatosa officer who were closest to Cole when he was shot asserted that neither the teen nor the gun had moved at all before Mensah fired. The only Wauwatosa officer who also said that Cole pointed a gun — Evan Olson — contradicted Mensah by saying that the gun had been pointed in a completely different direction, towards Olson and away from Mensah. 

The contradictions led to a federal civil lawsuit over Cole’s death that went to trial twice. Testimony at those trials revealed that Mensah and Olson were good friends on and off the job and had violated protocols requiring officers to be separated after a shooting. They got into a squad car alone together and turned off their dash cameras and audio equipment before driving back to the police department. According to trial testimony, they did not share those facts with police investigators. Both trials ended in hung juries, leaving jurors unable to decide unanimously whether Mensah’s killing of Alvin Cole was excessive. 

Tracy said that she still remembers those trials, and what it was like to see Mensah for the first time. 

“It’s like I could finally see a person instead of a name,” she said. “It never changed anything of how I feel about him.” 

She also recalled other officers taking the stand as she sat with her husband and remaining children “listening to the different testimonies, just listening to the videos.” Images of Alvin’s body were also briefly shown, something that Tracy said “I’ll never forget.”

The two trials were tense at times, as attorneys battled over what evidence could be shown or attempted to discredit each other’s witnesses while bolstering their own.  At various points, U.S. Marshals stood sentry or increased their presence, which confused both the Cole family’s attorneys and U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman. Several Wauwatosa officers also arrived to watch the proceedings in the gallery, dressed in full uniform, sitting around Mensah’s wife, who is a disgraced Milwaukee officer, or chatting with the pair in the hallways. The Cole’s attorneys argued that the presence of fully uniformed Wauwatosa officers could influence the jury, and that the officers were expressing a sort of solidarity with Mensah, which the Cole family was prohibited from doing for Alvin. 

Nevertheless, the two hung juries were encouraging for Alvin’s mother. “It was somebody in the jury [who] basically believed that my son was never a threat,” said Tracy. “It was somebody listening.” 

Although Alvin’s father was allowed to testify freely in the first trial, Tracy was not allowed to testify. The effort to keep her testimony out of the court record stuck out to Tracy and her attorneys, especially after her testimony was limited during a separate trial in 2023, when Wauwatosa PD stood accused of spying on and surveilling the Cole family and protesters who supported them in 2020. 

“I would basically had said how my son was,” she told the Examiner. “The events that I had with the Wauwatosa Police Department, what they did to me as a mother, that should never had happened.” 

After the Cole family began protesting in 2020, Wauwatosa PD put them, their attorneys, a Wisconsin Examiner reporter, and dozens of supporters on what they called a “target list” on at least one occasion. The list was shared with numerous local, state, and federal agencies. Wauwatosa officers also violently arrested Tracy and her daughters, one of whom claimed to have been stripped searched at a jail and questioned by the FBI. 

Tracy would have testified to all of this if asked, she said, “but they didn’t want a mother’s testimony,” because it would’ve been emotionally impactful to the jury. “But my husband, he was able to speak on my son’s behalf.” 

Tracy feels that the protests, held for over 400 days after George Floyd’s death, changed Wauwatosa for the better. 

“We changed laws,” she told the  Examiner. Wauwatosa PD adopted body cameras in 2021 after the protests, one of the family’s key demands. The department refused to adopt body cameras previously, even after Mensah killed three people over five years. Two of those were less than a year apart, when Mensah was still a rookie, and all the incidents were troubled by a lack of good video. The Milwaukee County District Attorneys Office declined to charge Mensah with any of the killings. The first jury in the Cole family’s case stated that a lack of good video was a main reason they couldn’t agree on a verdict. 

No other fatal police shootings occurred in Wauwatosa during Mensah’s time at the department, and the Cole family’s attorneys say that they’re unable to find other examples of fatal police shootings in Wauwatosa besides Mensah’s, no matter how far back they look.

The protesters also pushed for a ban on no knock warrants, and for Mensah and longtime Police Chief Barry Weber to be removed. Mensah resigned in late 2020 followed by Weber, who retired after leading the department for over 30 years as local media covered how Weber’s department had targeted anyone who was seen as anti-police. 

Finding forgiveness 

Memories of those days are still with Tracy, regardless of how much Wauwatosa officials claim their community has moved on. Fighting back was something she had to do, she said, even though it took a lot out of her. She also needed to learn to forgive Mensah, she said. 

“At the end of the day, I had to learn to forgive him, for what he did to my son,” she told the Examiner. “It took a process to learn to forgive him. I can’t hold a grudge, because that would take a whole part of me. I had to learn to forgive him.” Mensah left law enforcement in 2025 after a stint at the Waukesha County Sheriffs Office, following his time at Wauwatosa PD.

Alvin’s death was tragic and painful for the Cole family, yet it also brought them together.

“It made us stronger, it made us united as one,” said Tracy Cole. She’s had to learn again how to trust law enforcement after her experience with not just Mensah, but with Wauwatosa PD and the suburb as a whole. 

Yet, her experience of being surveilled remains with their family. Tracy watches her every move now. “I never had to, but now I’m very particular where I go, who I be around, who I talk to.”

Since Alvin’s death, more families have been touched by police-related violence and killings in Milwaukee County. 

“I would tell people that’s going through what I went through to never give up,” said Tracy. “Never give up. …the Devil wanted me to give up but I didn’t. Don’t give up. Keep fighting for your child.”

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WASHINGTON — The man who allegedly attacked the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last month pleaded not guilty Monday in federal court to four criminal charges, including attempting to assassinate the president of the United States.

Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of California, appeared before U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden in Washington, D.C., to be arraigned on charges that he tried to take the president’s life, which carries a possible life sentence, and that he assaulted a U.S. officer, transported a firearm and ammunition across state lines with intent to commit a felony and discharged a deadly weapon during a violent crime.

U.S. Department of Justice officials obtained the indictment on May 5.

Allen’s public defenders delivered the plea to McFadden as they stood on either side of Allen, who wore an orange jumpsuit and shackles and was accompanied by two law enforcement officers.

The arraignment comes just over two weeks after Allen allegedly rushed a U.S. Secret Service security checkpoint and fired a weapon one level above the ballroom where President Donald Trump, numerous Cabinet officials and thousands of other administration officials, journalists and lawmakers were attending the annual event.

Trump, first lady Melania Trump and Cabinet officials safely evacuated from the April 25 dinner.

A Secret Service agent, referred to in court documents as V.G., was hit in his protective vest by a bullet, but court documents do not specify who fired the shot. The agent was uninjured.

According to an affidavit signed April 27 by an FBI agent, Officer V.G. fired five rounds from his service weapon in Allen’s direction, but did not hit him.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, who attended the dinner, and government prosecutors argued Allen traveled across the country by train “armed to the teeth” and was willing to “commit a mass shooting inside a room full of the highest ranking officials in the U.S. government,” according to a memo filed prior to the superseding indictment. 

Prosecutors’ conflict of interest?

Allen’s federal public defenders argued Pirro and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche should recuse themselves from the case to avoid a conflict of interest, as both have “made statements indicating that they were witnesses to events,” according to motion filed Thursday.

“These are individuals alleging they are victims,” defense attorney Eugene Ohm said in court Monday, adding it would be “wholly inappropriate for a victim … to be the individuals who are prosecuting.”

Additionally, Ohm said Blanche “has a very close relationship” with the alleged target of the crime — Trump. Blanche was Trump’s personal defense lawyer prior to the president appointing him to the Department of Justice.

Discovery questions

McFadden said the situation would be “very surprising” if either Blanche or Pirro were called to testify at trial, but Ohm said there could be a risk if prosecutors filed additional charges after discovery, the pretrial investigative stage of a prosecution.

Ohm said the defense has not yet been provided with any discovery. 

McFadden gave government prosecutors two weeks to respond to the defense’s request that Pirro and Blanche recuse themselves.

“It would be helpful to have some definitive view” on whether they “see themselves as victims,” McFadden told DOJ prosecutor Charles Jones.

McFadden scheduled the next hearing for June 29, by which time he told prosecutors he “will be hoping we’ve made substantial progress on discovery.”

Over six years after 17-year-old Alvin Cole was fatally shot by then-Wauwatosa officer Joseph Mensah, the two sides in a contentious civil case have confirmed that they are close to reaching a confidential settlement deal, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. 

A third jury trial in federal court has been set for early May. Each of the first two trials — both held in 2025 — ended in hung juries, with jurors unable to unanimously decide whether Mensah used excessive force when he shot Cole in February 2020. 

The shooting occurred at Mayfair Mall, after a group of teenagers got into an  argument. One of the teens flashed a handgun and Wauwatosa police officers responded to a call  and encountered the group outside the mall. The teens fled when they saw the police, Cole among them. As Mensah and other officers chased Cole, Cole accidentally shot himself in the arm when the handgun he was carrying went off. Cole fell to the ground as police surrounded him, shouting various commands. 

Mensah told investigators that he shot Cole, believing that Cole was raising or pointing the handgun at him. Other officers’ accounts contradicted Mensah’s.  An officer who was closer to Cole, David Shamsi, said that neither Cole nor the gun moved after Cole was on the ground. Another officer, Evan Olson said that the gun was pointed at him, even though he was in a different position from Mensah. After the shooting, Olson and Mensah — who said that they were friends on and off the job — went off alone together in a squad car, violating policies which state that officers need to be separated after shootings to avoid contaminating statements. 

During the trials, Mensah said that he fired to protect himself and others around him, and that he didn’t want to die. Mensah also testified that he did not remember much of what happened that night. Cole was the third person Mensah had killed on the job during his five years as a Wauwatosa officer. Mensah resigned from the department in 2020 following months of protests over the shooting, and was hired by the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department before he  retired from law enforcement. Jurors  in the case were not allowed to know about Mensah’s two other shootings in 2015 and 2016, less than a year apart.

The terms of the settlement, including the amount awarded to the family, will remain confidential, lawyers said. During the first trial, attorneys representing Cole’s family asked for $22 million, and then $9 million in the second trial.

This article has been edited to correct the settlement figures sought during the first and second trials. 

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President Donald Trump safely evacuated the White House Correspondents Dinner at a hotel in Washington, D.C., on Saturday night after shots were fired by an alleged lone gunman.

About two hours after the shots were fired, Trump, still wearing his tuxedo, addressed a roomful of reporters also in formalwear at the White House briefing room. Trump said one officer had been shot in the attack, but was saved by “a very good bulletproof vest.”

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said at a separate press availability that the officer and the suspect had been transported to local hospitals. 

The suspect was armed with a shotgun, handgun and multiple knives, Washington Metropolitan Police interim Chief Jeffery Carroll said. As of Saturday night, investigators believed the suspect acted alone, though a full investigation was underway, Carroll said.

He would be prosecuted on two charges, using a firearm during a crime of violence and assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said. He would be arraigned in federal court Monday, she added. 

No other casualties were reported, and the U.S. Capitol Police said all members of Congress in attendance were unharmed. The high-profile press dinner intended to honor the First Amendment at the Washington Hilton Hotel, often dubbed “nerd prom,” attracts about 2,600 attendees who pay $480 each for tickets.

Charged security checkpoint

The suspected shooter, who law enforcement said was a guest at the hotel, was a man from California who charged “a security checkpoint armed with multiple weapons,” from about 50 yards away, Trump said. 

He posted a photo on his social media platform of what appeared to be the suspect, lying shirtless flat on the floor. Some news media identified the individual but States Newsroom cannot yet confirm those reports.

Anthony Guglielmi, a Secret Service spokesman, said in a statement on social media the incident occurred near the main magnetometer screening area at the dinner.

“He was running full-blast,” Trump said. 

Federal law enforcement on Saturday night was pursuing warrants to search the man’s home, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said at the briefing with Trump.

Asked if he believed he was the target of the attack, Trump said, “I guess.” 

Trump said he’d been targeted, now apparently in a third assassination attempt in two years, because of his impactful record as president.

“It comes with the territory,” he said. “You take a look at what’s happened to some of our greatest presidents, and it doesn’t happen to people that don’t do anything,” he said.  

In a social media post before briefing reporters, Trump said he was in “perfect condition.”

Rescheduled dinner

At the White House briefing room podium, Trump praised the law enforcement response and committed to rescheduling the event in the next 30 days. The dinner, an annual celebration of the White House press corps, is “dedicated to freedom of speech,” he said.

“And we’ll make it bigger and better and even nicer,” he said. “I just want to thank everybody that was involved. I also want to thank the press, the media. You’ve been very responsible in your coverage, I will say. I’ve been seeing what’s been out.”

An initial press pool report from the hotel after the shooting occurred, sent at 8:39 p.m. Eastern, said “There was several loud bangs and the Secret Service with guns drawn rushed the pool out of the room. (The) Secret Service pushed us back screaming ‘Shots fired.’”

Jacqui Heinrich of Fox News said on social media shortly after 9 p.m. Eastern that she was behind the podium with other guests, “in a hold,” and Trump was still down the hall and did not want to leave.

Trump himself confirmed that in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social. 

“Quite an evening in D.C. Secret Service and Law Enforcement did a fantastic job,” he wrote. “They acted quickly and bravely. The shooter has been apprehended, and I have recommended that we ‘LET THE SHOW GO ON’ but, will entirely be guided by Law Enforcement. They will make a decision shortly. Regardless of that decision, the evening will be much different than planned, and we’ll just, plain, have to do it again. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Frightened reporters seated at tables in the Hilton ballroom dove for the floor. Cabinet members and White House officials were hustled out of the room.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer said on air that he heard “a really loud blasting away” and the next thing he knew he was being pushed to the floor by police. “I was just a few feet away from the gunman, and it was a really scary moment,” Blitzer said.

Reagan shooting

The annual formal dinner is hosted by an organization made up of journalists who cover the White House. Trump’s invitation to the event had been controversial given his frequent personal attacks on reporters and the news media in general.

The Hilton was also the site of another attack on a president when on the afternoon of March 30, 1981, gunman John Hinckley Jr. shot and wounded President Ronald Reagan while he was leaving the hotel. Reagan recovered after a stay in the hospital. Reagan’s press secretary, James Brady, also was wounded, as were police officer Thomas Delahanty and Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy.

Details of the shooter’s motive and plan Saturday were not immediately clear. Trump said the public would know much more about him in the coming days.

Trump was injured in an assassination attempt during a campaign stop in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. Another suspected assassin was arrested near Trump’s home in Florida on Sept. 15 of that year.

Jonathan Shorman contributed to this report.