Woman Caught Stealing During White House Correspondents’ Dinner Shooting

What was already shaping up to be one of the most chaotic nights in Washington took an even stranger turn when a woman was caught on camera grabbing bottles of wine in the aftermath of the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

As terrified guests scrambled for safety inside the Washington Hilton ballroom, footage showed an unidentified blonde woman in a black fur coat heading straight for a table and stocking up on abandoned wine bottles. The bizarre scene quickly exploded online, with many viewers stunned that while panic spread through the room, at least some attendees seemed more focused on salvaging the booze than processing the danger that had just unfolded.

The shooting happened early in the evening, during the salad course, leaving plenty of unopened wine still sitting on tables across the ballroom after the event was thrown into chaos. The woman’s identity has not been confirmed, and it remains unclear whether she was a journalist, guest, or connected to the event in some other way.

Once the footage hit social media, the backlash came fast. Critics blasted the optics of someone casually helping herself to wine bottles just moments after a violent incident shook one of the capital’s most high-profile media gatherings.

“So, there you have press members STEALING wine bottles: this is who the press is! Repugnant!” one outraged user wrote.

Another fumed, “How shameless, after the shooting incident, journalists are stealing liquor bottles in the same hall where President Donald Trump was also present.”

Still, not everyone saw it that way. Some online commenters argued the wine had already been paid for as part of the expensive dinner and was fair game once the event ended abruptly.

“How is this stealing? They were placed on the tables for dinner. They were meant to be consumed. Everything was already paid for,” one person wrote.

Another added, “Bro they paid $350+ a plate and the night got canceled early, free wine tax refund is fair game.”

The woman with the wine was not the only attendee to go viral. CAA agent Michael Glantz also drew attention after cameras appeared to catch him calmly eating his salad while others were ducking under tables as shots rang out.

The annual dinner was thrown into turmoil Saturday night when authorities say a gunman tried to push past security and opened fire before being subdued. The suspect, identified as 31-year-old Cole Allen of Torrance, California, allegedly attempted to breach the security perimeter to reach the ballroom where President Donald Trump and other top officials were present.

Multiple shots were fired during the incident, though only one Secret Service officer suffered a minor injury after a bullet struck the officer’s protective vest. Trump and members of his cabinet were quickly evacuated.

The shocking security breach raised serious new questions about how the suspect got so close to the event. While weapons screening takes place before entry into the ballroom itself, access to the Washington Hilton is reportedly controlled only through loose ticket checks, especially for those attending pre-dinner parties or staying at the hotel.

Allen is now facing two counts of discharging a firearm during a crime and one count of assault on a federal officer with a dangerous weapon, according to U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro. He was set to be arraigned on April 27.

But while the shooting itself is now at the center of a major federal case, the viral wine-snatching moment has become its own symbol of what many critics say was a deeply unserious and tone-deaf response from some in the room. In a night that could have ended far worse, one of the most talked-about images was not of fear, heroism, or urgency, but of someone walking off with the wine.