On Saturday, April 25, Greenbelt News Review Intern Laura Charleston was among those at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Charleston, who will graduate next month with a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, was there to be recognized as a recipient of the Frank Cormier Scholarship. Unfortunately, she was unable to be recognized or receive her certificate because an alleged assassination attempt disrupted the annual event. Here, in an eyewitness account, she shares her experience of the evening with News Review readers.
Laura describes the dinner as “prestigious” and “buzzing.” “Though we were over 2,000 people in that room, many of us were moving around, introducing ourselves and talking. You could tell who was VIP by the suits wearing a serious face surrounding them, their bodyguards.”
President Trump was seated to the far left of the stage table while Laura was at the third table from the stage, on the right-hand side. Her seat was some distance from the president but not far from the stage, she says.
The guests were allowed to enter the dining room at around 7 p.m., Laura recalls. An hour and a half later, the gunshots went off.
The Aftermath
Footage of the room shared by news organizations shows Vice President Vance and President Trump being evacuated from the stage. Other guests were instructed to take shelter. “If you did not have any Secret Service or bodyguards tending to you, you were told to get down,” says Laura. “They began evacuating politicians and celebrities immediately.” In a room full of journalists, approximately 30 to 40 minutes after hearing shots, at what Laura estimates was around 9 p.m., an increasing number of reporters felt comfortable moving around; they “began recording, photographing and interviewing people or calling their editors,” recalls Laura.
Laura’s first call was to her younger brother to let him know she was all right. Later, she called her mother, not sure how much was being reported about the event already and not wanting her to panic.
Around 9 p.m., Weijia Jiang, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), informed the guests that both a shooter and the president had been evacuated. A few minutes later, she announced President Trump wished to return and the dinner would resume. They were instructed to return to their tables, says Laura, but a final announcement, around 9:50 p.m., stated that, for security reasons, the event was canceled.
Reporting the Event
After the panic had subsided University of Maryland Dean of Journalism Rafael Lorente, who was also in the room, approached Laura and asked if she wanted to help with reporting the event. “Of course, I agreed,” said Laura. She interviewed three reporters from Politico and two from Reuters. “Christi Parsons, director of Capital News Service (CNS) D.C. Bureau, was there to guide me and the other UMD students (also scholarship recipients) who were reporting. We had an article out by 12 a.m. Sunday morning,” says Laura. The article Laura co-authored was published by CNS Maryland and can be found at tinyurl.com/yh57698s.
Security
Asked about the security at the event, Laura described it as disappointing. The shooter was a guest at the hotel, but even if he hadn’t been, Laura still believes he would have had multiple opportunities to enter. Though there were D.C. Police patrol officers blocking traffic around the event, when Laura entered the area, she was simply asked if she was attending the event or not, or if she was a guest at the hotel. There was no request for ID and no pat-down, she says. A few times, people who were neither guests of the hotel nor the event passed her and were stopped and questioned. In front of the hotel, she had to produce her paper invitation for the dinner. “Again, no ID check or form of security check of my bag or pat-down,” she recalls. “If you were a guest, your name was on a paper spreadsheet.” Once inside the hotel, guests of the Correspondents’ Dinner were escorted downstairs. There were guards everywhere, says Laura, but still no ID check and no bag check. “It wasn’t until 7 p.m. when we were moved into the reception area that I had to walk through a metal detector, and my bag was checked. TSA and other security members were completing this. It was the only professional security check the entire night, and this was only one floor above the dining room where we would be eating.” This was the area where the gunman was apprehended, says Laura, two flights of stairs away from the dining room. “Two flights of stairs and he could’ve fired toward the room where we were all seated,” she reflects.
Eventful Evening
It was an eventful evening, even though she never received her certificate. Did she ever get to eat that evening, we asked. “I had a small salad ‒ Spring Pea and Burrata Salad with bread. That is all. I hadn’t eaten anything that day and was looking forward to dinner,” she said. It would have been lobster.
Though President Trump stated on Saturday he wants the dinner rescheduled within 30 days, Laura hasn’t heard anything official from the WHCA yet about her scholarship certificate or when she might receive it, or if there’ll be another opportunity to celebrate with a lobster dinner.
