A volunteer at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner claims the suspected gunman assembled a “long” weapon in a lightly monitored area near the terrace-level entrance before opening fire and rushing toward the ballroom.
The witness, identified as Helen Mabus of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, described a “makeshift room” near the entrance where bar carts were stored and, at the time, lacked security presence. According to her account, the suspect retrieved the weapon from a bag and put it together on-site.
“He was in that room… he grabbed it out of a bag or something,” Mabus said, noting that the weapon “was long” and “didn’t look like a typical gun.”