Leslie Coffelt

Coffelt was wounded during the assassination attempt, which two Puerto Rican nationalists carried out. Though mortally wounded by three bullets, Coffelt returned fire moments later and killed one of the attackers with a single shot to the head. The other was convicted by a federal jury and sentenced to death; Truman commuted the sentence to life imprisonment and Jimmy Carter released the man from jail in 1979.

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter commuted Collazo's sentence to time served, granted him release from prison. Collazo returned to Puerto Rico, where he died in 1994.

Acknowledging the importance of the question of Puerto Rico's status, Truman authorized a referendum in Puerto Rico in 1952 to determine its relationship to the U.S.

Oscar Collazo was convicted and sentenced to death in federal court; Truman commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. Acknowledging the importance of the question of Puerto Rican independence, Truman allowed a plebiscite in Puerto Rico in 1952 to determine the status of its relationship to the U.S. The people voted to continue as a Free Associated State, as established in 1950.

On November 1, 1950, would-be assassins Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo, nationalists who supported the independence of Puerto Rico from the United States, attacked officers at the Blair House in order to assassinate President Truman. He was living there because of a major renovation at the White House for structural problems.

Coffelt was buried in Arlington National Cemetery on November 4, 1950, in Section 17, Site 17719-59. His epitaph reads, "White House Policeman: Who Gave His Life in Defense of the President of the United States During an Assassination Attempt at the Blair House, Washington, D.C." To this day, Coffelt is one of only four Secret Service members to take a bullet while defending the President, the others being Donald Birdzell and Joseph Downs, who were wounded during the same incident, and Tim McCarthy, who was wounded in the abdomen by John Hinckley Jr. during the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan.

That year, as the US entered World War II, Coffelt was drafted and assigned to B Company, 300th Infantry Regiment, United States Army. Coffelt served less than two years and never made it overseas; the Army gave him a medical discharge. In 1945, he returned to duty with the White House Police.

In 1941, Coffelt returned to the Metropolitan Police. In 1942 he requested and was awarded a transfer to the White House Police.

Coffelt met Cressie Elinor Morgan of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, who was training to become a nurse. Coffelt and Morgan were married on October 5, 1937, in Prince George's County, Maryland. They moved into an apartment in Washington. Coffelt was also a Freemason and a member of Potomac Lodge #5 F.A.A.M. in Georgetown, Washington D.C.

In 1928, Coffelt left Oranda to look for a job in Washington, D.C., and became a police officer with the Metropolitan Police Department in 1929. He was assigned to Precinct 3, which ran the length of K Street. In 1936, he resigned to become a building technician.

Coffelt is buried at Arlington National Cemetery with his wife Cressie (1912–1985).

Leslie William Coffelt (August 15, 1910 – November 1, 1950) was an officer of the White House Police, a branch of the Secret Service, who was killed while successfully defending U.S. President Harry S. Truman against an attempted assassination on November 1, 1950, at Blair House, where the president was living during renovations at the White House.