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.
Righrt, no idea about trauma. If the dude can’t handle someone annoying him in a food court at the mall without resorting to attempted murder, jail is where he belongs, maybe a psych hospital.
This isn’t just “someone annoying him”, the harasser is a 6’5" dude who walked up to within inches of the shooter, then when the shooter told him to get back and started backing away himself, continued to close the distance. This is open and shut self defense, you don’t get to hunt someone down like that, staying in their personal space, and expect them to not feel threatened. YOU would feel threatened and if you’re telling me otherwise, I have a friend named Billy Bob who’d like to stand silently in your personal space for the remainder of the year.
I wouldn’t be in fear that my life would imminently end. That’s stupid and rediculous.
Well, I guess you aren’t a reasonable person.
Just not terrified of every other human being. Seems like a shitty way to live and an easy way to end up serving life in prison for murder.
I’m not terrified of every other human being. Just the tiny portion who refuse to respect personal space and clearly expressed verbal and nonverbal boundary delineations. This isn’t comparable to a stranger calling you over to ask for directions or for some money or help with something.
Okay, be terrified of them.
At what point do you take it as a lethal* threat ?
Of nnore, you would have been wrong in this instance. Police get immunity if they make a mistake, you do not.
When they’re repeatedly advancing after being warned to back off. That’s a legal threat at that point. The victim has made it clear that they’re asking the perpetrator to move and also made efforts to remove himself from the situation. When prevented from doing that there was an imminent threat of bodily harm to him, at which point he reacted appropriately.
I don’t see anything that says he was prevented from retreating.
Legal threat was an autocorrect error.
I meant to say lethal threat.
Advancing on you may be a threat of harm, it’s not a threat of lethal harm.
That you could be in for a beating doesn’t give you the right to start banging off at the mall food court.