A YouTube prankster who was shot by one his targets told jurors Tuesday he had no inkling he had scared or angered the man who fired on him as the prank was recorded.
Tanner Cook, whose “Classified Goons” channel on YouTube has more than 55,000 subscribers, testified nonchalantly about the shooting at start of the trial for 31-year-old Alan Colie, who’s charged with aggravated malicious wounding and two firearms counts.
The April 2 shooting at the food court in Dulles Town Center, about 45 minutes west of Washington, D.C., set off a panic as shoppers fled what they feared to be a mass shooting.
Jurors also saw video of the shooting, recorded by Cook’s associates. The two interacted for less than 30 seconds. Video shows Cook approaching Colie, a DoorDash driver, as he picked up an order. The 6-foot-5 (1.95-meter-tall) Cook looms over Colie while holding a cellphone about 6 inches (15 centimeters) from Colie’s face. The phone broadcasts the phrase “Hey dips—-, quit thinking about my twinkle” multiple times through a Google Translate app.
On the video, Colie says “stop” three different times and tries to back away from Cook, who continues to advance. Colie tries to knock the phone away from his face before pulling out a gun and shooting Cook in the lower left chest.
Cook, 21, testified Tuesday that he tries to confuse the targets of his pranks for the amusement of his online audience. He said he doesn’t seek to elicit fear or anger, but acknowledged his targets often react that way.
Asked why he didn’t stop the prank despite Colie’s repeated requests, Cook said he “almost did” but not because he sensed fear or anger from Colie. He said Colie simply wasn’t exhibiting the type of reaction Cook was looking for.
“There was no reaction,” Cook said.
In opening statements, prosecutors urged jurors to set aside the off-putting nature of Cook’s pranks.
“It was stupid. It was silly. And you may even think it was offensive,” prosecutor Pamela Jones said. “But that’s all it was — a cellphone in the ear that got Tanner shot.”
Defense attorney Tabatha Blake said her client didn’t have the benefit of knowing he was a prank victim when he was confronted with Cook’s confusing behavior.
She said the prosecution’s account of the incident “diminishes how unsettling they were to Mr. Alan Colie at the time they occurred.”
In the video, before the encounter with Colie, Cook and his friends can be heard workshopping the phrase they want to play on the phone. One of the friends urges that it be “short, weird and awkward.”
Cook’s “Classified Goons” channel is replete with repellent stunts, like pretending to vomit on Uber drivers and following unsuspecting customers through department stores. At a preliminary hearing, sheriff’s deputies testified that they were well aware of Cook and have received calls about previous stunts. Cook acknowledged during cross-examination Tuesday that mall security had tossed him out the day prior to the shooting as he tried to record pranks and that he was trying to avoid security the day he targeted Colie.
Jury selection took an entire day Monday, largely because of publicity the case received in the area. At least one juror said during the selection process that she herself had been a victim of one of Cook’s videos.
Cook said he continues to make the videos and earns $2,000 or $3,000 a month. His subscriber base increased from 39,000 before the shooting to 55,000 after.
Agree. Even under the broadest, natural law justification for self defense, this wasn’t self defense. The dude had no basis to conclude his life was in danger.
Lmao. Cops shoot people who just ignore them and get a vacation. This guy has a stranger in his face suddenly who won’t leave him alone and keeps getting closer despite repeated commands not to and you think he has no right?
Fuck cops and fuck people who support shooting people because they’re scared. You’re no better than cop aoplogists.
Yes we should all just die instead because you learned in Hollywood that there’s magically no fear if you’re in the right.
Cops have no right either, often. They get away with it because they are cops. This guy isn’t getting away with it, nor should he. Just because the system lets off corrupt cops doesn’t mean it let’s everyone off.
I know he doesn’t have a right to self defense here because I passed my first year courses in law school.
Cool, first year law courses. Come back when you’ve spent years doing tactical training. The only more escalatory thing the YouTuber could have done is actually hitting them. At which point it’s too late. We don’t live in Hollywood land where the bad guy stands back to let the hero do whatever they want. Court rulings generally support this unless the state is a duty to retreat state. But Virginia is a stand your ground state. (As are most states these days)
What the YouTuber did is colloquially called Bulldogging and the entire point is to intimidate someone with an intimation of physical threat.
There’s a reason this idiot is on the Internet and not in the field
Just another ivory tower kid whose never had a bad day in their life trying to QB a situation that developed in seconds.
Yeah and that reason is because I did my time and have a career where most days I can fuck off between phone calls and letters.
Lol tactical training? This is a legal question not a bootcamp hypothetical.
You don’t get to kill people for walking toward you. Nobody would like living in that world. Not even in a stand your ground state is merely walking toward someone an imminent threat to life. You have been tricked if you believe this.
Bootcamp? And just walking toward someone? I see you learned to properly research stuff already. The article at the top describes the video in vivid detail. He got right up on him with intentionally disorienting noises. Pushed the phone right up towards his head. Ignored physical and verbal commands to stop and just got closer. That’s not someone just calmly walking towards you on a sidewalk.
You’re right, it’s not someone calmy walking toward you, and you have the right to use reasonable force in self defense in this scenario. Deadly force is not reasonable absent a threat of deadly force or serious bodily injury.
The YouTuber had no weapon. Did not in fact intend to harm the victim. Did not touch the victim. Did not say he was going to harm the victim. Did not make any aggressive gestures that he was going to harm him.
What fact are you hanging your hat on to say “ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this dude was clearly out to kill me, I had no choice.”
He walked towards me babbling while his three friends filmed? I would tear you apart in front of the jury if that’s your defense. You would be in tears realizing how fucked you are.
You don’t get to kill someone for walking toward you. You could punch him in the face. Not shoot him in the chest, though.
You don’t think that’s a threat of serious bodily injury? It’s literally the original non verbal threat. If you wait for someone to verbally tell you they’re going to hurt you then you’re going to have a really bad time.
Some of these commenters must live in very pristine areas with little to no crime.
Where I live (not even really a bad area compared to many) that behaviour is almost always, at best, the start of a mugging. Other times, the victim ends up dead. There’s no way to know that someone who is unhinged and in your face is just playing a prank. Playing optimism with the wrong group of people might very well be game over.
Do I LOVE that he was shot? Not at all. I definitely understand the driver’s fear though, especially if he has lived or worked in rough areas. Especially in a country where many people have guns. I wouldn’t want to wait and see, either.
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Serious bodily injury means threat to life or limb.
Catching a beating in a food court surrounded by people from an unarmed man is not a threat to life or limb. It’s a threat to black and blues.
What fact are you hanging your hat on in front of the jury here, since you’re so sure. What’s the reason you give to say “jury, I had no choice.”
I don’t.
Someone pointing a cellphone in your face, even acting belligerently doesn’t meet the standard of fearing for your life.
People that scared of the world shouldn’t own guns.
Youtuber was definitely as asshole and he definitely had something coming to him but you can’t just shoot someone who’s annoying you and putting a camera in your face.
I see in another comment you deride first year law classes. Mind if I ask what year you’re in?
Seems these people are forgetting this was in a, presumably crowded, food court, and not a dark alley. Shooter is on very thin legal ice, very thin.
Also, seems some of these folks don’t have experience with the garden variety bully. This wasn’t some madman running up on the shooter, this was a bigger guy clearly trying to get a reaction.
If the aggressor had spoken any “fighting words”, and yes that’s a legal term, I might well have shot him. That does not seem to have been the case.