page_title: Attempted assassination of Harry S. Truman
section_title: Attack
hierarchical_section_title: Attempted assassination of Harry S. Truman / Attack
caption_attribution_description: English: Blair House, the official state guest house for the President of the United States.
context_page_description: The second of two assassination attempts on U.S. President Harry S. Truman occurred on November 1, 1950. It was carried out by militant Puerto Rican pro-independence activists Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola while the President resided at Blair House during the renovation of the White House. Both men were stopped before gaining entry to the house. Torresola mortally wounded White House Police officer Leslie Coffelt, who killed him in return fire. Secret Service agents wounded Collazo. President Harry S. Truman was upstairs in the house and not harmed.
context_section_description: Torresola approached Blair House, located on Pennsylvania Avenue, from the west side, while Collazo walked up behind Capitol police officer, Donald Birdzell, who was standing on the steps of the Blair House. President Truman was napping in his quarters on the second floor. Collazo tried to shoot Birdzell in the back, but had failed to chamber a round in his pistol, and the gun did not fire. Collazo chambered a round and fired the weapon just as Birdzell was turning to face him, and shot the officer in his right knee.
  After hearing the gunshots, Secret Service agent Vincent Mroz ran through a basement corridor, stepping out of a street-level door on the east side of the House, where he opened fire on Collazo. Mroz stopped Collazo with a bullet to the chest while he was on the entrance steps. Two other officers also shot Collazo, in what was described as "the biggest gunfight in Secret Service history."
  Meanwhile, Torresola had approached a guard booth at the west corner, where he took White House Police officer Leslie Coffelt by surprise, shooting four times at close range and mortally wounding him with a 9×19mm German Luger. Three of those shots struck Coffelt in the chest and abdomen; the fourth went through his tunic.
  
  Torresola shot police officer Joseph Downs in the hip, before he could draw his weapon. As Downs turned toward the house, Torresola shot him in the back and in the neck. Downs got into the basement and secured the door, denying the attacker entry into the Blair House. Torresola moved to the shoot-out between his partner Collazo and several other police officers, shooting officer Donald Birdzell in the left knee. 
  Birdzell could no longer stand and was effectively incapacitated, although he would later recover. Torresola was standing to the left of the Blair House steps to reload when President Truman looked outside his second floor window, 31 feet (9.4 m) from the attacker. Secret Service agents shouted at Truman to get away from the window.
  At that same moment, Coffelt left the guard booth, propped against it, and fired his .38-caliber service revolver at Torresola, about 30 feet (10 m) away. Coffelt hit Torresola 2 inches (50 mm) above the ear, killing him instantly. Coffelt limped back to the booth and blacked out. Taken to the hospital, Coffelt died four hours later. The gunfight involving Torresola lasted approximately 20 seconds, while the gunfight with Collazo lasted approximately 38.5 seconds. Only one of Collazo's shots hit anyone, largely because Collazo was not a skilled or experienced gunman. Torresola, an expert shooter, did most of the shooting and inflicted almost all of the injuries on the Secret Service officers.
  Afterwards, Truman commented that he was not frightened by the attack: since he was a combat veteran of the First World War, he "had [already] been shot at by professionals [i.e. German soldiers]."
caption: Blair House, site of the attempt, shown here c. 2006.
  At the time of the attempt, there were two guard booths in front, which are not present in this image.
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