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- cross-posted to:
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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.
No the threat has to be imminent, not imaginary. The person did not have a gun. That a person might be a threat to you isn’t an imminent threat. Otherwise, you could just shoot anyone you want as long as they were walking toward you.
Holy crap, are you a social media “prankster” or something? I don’t know how you can feel so vehemently the wrong way about something unless you’re actually doing it.
I’m controlling my emotions and relying on my ability to reason things out. Try imagining if everyone shot everyone who walked up to them babbling incoherently. You’re letting your lizard brain control you.
You’re not a reasonable person though, a reasonable person would be afraid of someone approaching babbling incoherently, would back off and tell them to get away, then react with a fight or flight response if they continued to advance. That’s what someone relying on their ability to reason things out would do. That’s what this guy did. He had a gun, the attacker wouldn’t stop advancing when he retreated. He shot. Self defense.
I’m with you until your last two sentence fragments.
Self defense excuses reasonable force. Reasonable force is certainly that which is merely reciprocal, equal. Did the dude shout for help? Did the dude warn him to get back or else? Did the dude have more room to retreat?
It’s one thing if you’ve said “get back or I’ll fucking kill you,” and dude keeps coming; there, the inference of intent to cause serious harm is reasonable. It’s one thing if your backed into a corner and winded.
It’s another thing to be annoyed and not in the mood for bullshit at the food court, so you try to kill an idiot. And it’s a thing called culpable homicide.
Non-human entity, please return to your home planet. We don’t want you here.
That is imminent. Aggressively coming at someone and refusing to step away after being repeatedly asked to, as well as the victim trying to move away is absolutely threatening. Just because you’re some “big man” who doesn’t get scared doesn’t mean that others don’t have valid feelings about what is happening to them.
As a minority if someone, especially a large white man with a camera, comes up to me yelling and aggressively shoving a phone in my face playing offensive statements from google translate then I’m 99% sure I’m about to be the victim of a hate crime. That’s the world we live in. Where anyone can be armed and fighting back is gambling with your life.
I don’t carry, nor would I feel safer doing so, but this is a legitimate use of a weapon in self defense.
The aspect of the threat that is not imminent is the lethality.
Person hasn’t touched you. Has not brandished a weapon. Has not said they were going to harm you.
There is no jurisdiction in America where you don’t get charged with culpable homicide, be it murder or at best manslaughter. I don’t need to be some “big man” that not scared as you suggest. I can be scared. I possibly may even get killed.
Possibility is not probability, let alone imminent probability.
What else is he supposed to do?
He believed his life was in danger, which is a valid assumption based on the unhinged, aggressive behavior of the YouTuber and the mob behind him. There was absolutely an imminent danger to his life.
There’s no crime here. It’s textbook self defense.
And yet he’s charged and on trial.