It was meant to be a glitzy Saturday night at a Washington ballroom featuring President Donald Trump, but the glamour was shattered by gunshots that left guests diving to the floor and the US leader bundled out by security personnel.
Trump was seated on the dais at the White House Correspondents’ Association’s annual dinner – the first time he is attending as president – when loud bangs disrupted the revelry and caused him and others on stage to look up in alarm.
Video captured by news outlets attending the event showed a chaotic scene unfolding.
Moments after what sounded like gunshots, cries of “Stay down!” and “Get down!” were heard while guests, including correspondents, officials in the Trump administration and some members of his cabinet took cover.
Amid the chaos, the president was quickly surrounded by US Secret Service personnel, their weapons drawn, and they quickly rushed Trump off the stage and through a back curtain as the crowd crouched in shock.
The big band music stopped and people in ball gowns and tuxedos turned quiet as agents swarmed around tables and over guests on the floor of the massive ballroom of the Washington Hilton, the very hotel where president Ronald Reagan survived an assassination attempt 45 years earlier.