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.
Hey guys, can we quit with the calls for the deaths of assholes? Lemmy.world’s server rules include this:
- No links to content supporting, featuring, or promoting hate movements, terrorism, mass violence, or calls to violence.
I’ve seen that interpreted as including comments that call for someone’s death, and I don’t want to see this shit get out of hand and draw admin attention.
This particular piece of shit, Tanner Cook, deserves to have his channels shut down, deserves some prison time, and deserves some kind of court order preventing him from pulling stupid “pranks” on anyone ever again. Maybe then he can do something productive with his life, instead of… whatever the fuck it is he’s doing right now.
But he can’t do that if he’s dead.
Being an asshole isn’t a capital offense, worthy of summary execution. And the judge in this case apparently agrees.
So just tone it down a little, OK?
People only see this with the context that this is a youtuber doing a prank.
This man is 6 fucking 5. Imagine a random giant gets in your face, you think you’re about to be robbed or beaten. He advances. You retreat. He advances. You retreat, he advanced. Again, you retreat, he advances, all the while shoving something in your face. How many times do you need to tell someone to disengage and retreat before its okay to consider it a threat?
Just because this guy happened to be a youtuber doing a prank is irrelevant, imo.
Take away the gun for a minute. Would this guy be on trial if he instead hit him in the head with a blunt object? I’m not a fan of guns, not approving of firing them in public, so on and so forth, but I think this person may have been justified in defending themselves.
Yes, from what is presented here, it sure sounds like self-defense was warranted but the guy needed to try a less lethal weapon. Put them both in jail, plus seize the Ill-gotten gains of the asshole.
I know it’s easy to be brave on the internet, with plenty of time to think about it: I wanted to quip “that’s what I carry elbows for”. I certainly can’t claim to know whether I would react appropriately, but I don’t have to since I don’t carry a lethal weapon. If you do carry, you need to be able to respond appropriately instead of just blasting away at the first confrontation
That’s my point though, I think he may have reacted appropriately. If he carried the gun legally and he was within his right to defend himself I can’t fault him for the outcome. More over, if I’m picking incidents to show irresponsible use of firearms, this wouldn’t be high on my list.
This is the problem with US gun laws; so he’s carrying legally, gets in a situation where self defense is warranted, and does…
- ask the other guy to stop
- back away
cry for helppush the guy awayshove an elbow into guy’s gutknee him into the groinpush fingers into his eyesshove keys into guy’s kidneys- pull a gun and shoot the guy… because, y’know, can never be sure whether the attacker is going to shoot you first or not
I really wouldn’t want to live in a place where the only options for self defense are to either back away, or shoot someone.
What? This was a fucking 6ft 5in giant of an attacker. I suppose I’m happy that you never seem to have taken a sucker punch, or any serious strike to anywhere vital, but that sort of shit is a momentary action for the attacker that can easily leave the victim reeling and unable to react for literal minutes after.
The attacker doesn’t need a gun to permanently injure you, and only needs a moment to strike you when you attempt to do any of the options you crossed out as things that should have been attempted first. Plus it’s a hell of a lot easier to say any of those options you listed than successfully do them (besides crying for help of fucking course), especially when you have no training in self defense, you’re already intensely off balance, confused, scared, and tense because some random stranger is acting confusingly aggresive towards you.
You go to push him away. He elbows you in the face and proceeds to beat the ever loving shit out of you as you flail to block your vital organs, crying for help where you’ll be lucky if anyone responds at all, let alone fast enough to do anything to actually help you before you end up with broken bones and permanent brain damage (it doesn’t take much to do if someone’s going apeshit on your head once you’re already on the ground).
The unfortunate reality is that any threat to your physical safety by someone larger or stronger than yourself is inherently an existential threat to you unless you rely on your attacker not having lethal intent. You’ve been accosted by a complete stranger. You don’t know shit about their intent. You can only hope. This is true regardless of how each party is armed, guns, knives, or only with their fists. If they truly want to kill you and you have no way to equalize their advantage over you, you’re probably just fucked.
You can argue that people shouldn’t be allowed to carry guns and should be restricted to non-lethal options, but given the situation and the tools this guy had available, the gun was the only option that would guarantee his safety against unknown intent.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to ask someone to risk their own life just so they might allow an unknown aggressor with unknown intent the opportunity to live at the potential cost of their own life. The only way to know if you are in lethal danger in this situation is in retrospect. After the altercation is over, and the victim is potentially dead.
The aggressor is the one that chose to initiate the aggression. If the situation is a question of whether the victim ot the aggressor has more of a right to live, and it is a binary choice (as it has every potential to be), I don’t think it’s a hard call.
I wish that it didn’t have to be reduced to a kill or be killed judgement, but humans are far more fucking fragile than any of us like to admit or think about, and again we can only know if the attacker had lethal intent in retrospect.
only needs a moment to strike you
The shooter gave the attacker plenty of moments:
- asked him to back out
- backed away
- asked again
- backed again
- asked again
- backed once more
- pushed the phone out of his face
According to your logic, he could’ve died 7 times that day.
And only then pulled out a gun. 🤦
That’s assinine. If he was so unsure about the threat level, then should have tried to run away and hide from the start; they weren’t out in the desert FFS.
Instead, he acted all sure of his own superiority with his gun, waiting for an excuse to use it. That’s closer to premeditated intent to kill, rather than self defense.
Tbf imo while I carry a gun, I also carry mace for shit like this. From the above description it seems normal force was certainly justified but deadly force is questionable, however I withhold personal judgement as I’m not following the case and the details reported could be (often are) wildly innacurate from the facts.
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This assumes a level of focus, presence of mind, and training to reliably discriminate between injurious and non-injurious active threats and measure your response with non-lethal force on a gamble that your attacker is non going to be physically violent towards you.
Cops fail at this all the time, it’s not reasonable to treat non-injurious threats as acceptable behavior and demand non-police with zero legal protections handle it better.
If you’re going to walk up to a stranger in the street and threaten them, then proceed to advance when they respond with “please stop! Get away from me!”, you have forfeited any right to benefit of the doubt on their part.
That’s not enough to respond with deadly force. You are responsible for your actions and should not carry a deadly weapon if you can’t make the distinction. Shouting for help, pushing away, or even a punch in the face are much more appropriate responses.
A reasonable person would not consider a gun an appropriate response to annoying and possibly threatening behavior. Running away for example.
The youtuber fucked around and found out.
When did it become the default to allow harrassment and intinidation just because its being filmed?
The victim was frearing bodily harm and theft, if not other violence.
Justified self defense in response to an assult, imo.
When did shooting someone become the only means of self defense?
When you’re facing someone significantly larger than yourself and that is the only tool you have on you to handle a situation where you are afraid for your physical safety. Yes he should have used a non-lethal option, but he didn’t have one on him.
Whether he should have been carrying one is an entirely different question to whether he was justified in using the gun in the situation he found himself in.
Not like you can ask the crazy giant continuing to escalate their threat to your safety to wait while you pop on home for your tazer.
I know it’s overly reductive, but is your issue with the gun or with this person attempting to defend themselves?
the only tool you have on you to handle a situation
It wasn’t. There was running, hiding, asking security for help… plenty of tools before picking a gunfight.
My issue is with this person jumping from 0 to 100 in order to defend themselves. My more general issue, is with people like this person thinking that’s the proper way to react.
A doordash driver gets cornered by a large 6 foot 5 man who aggressively shoves a phone in his ear repeatedly calling them a dipshit who thinks about their “twinkle”, tries to get away but is followed, explicitly asks the man to leave him alone 3 times but is ignored, and tries to brush the phone away? Yeah that sounds like a situation a reasonable person might fear for their life in, and before anyone goes “well why didn’t they use a less lethal self defense method?”, the prankster is 6 foot 5 and the victim likely only had his fists or his gun for self defense, one of those two is going to get you out of that situation alive
Just based on the facts from what information we have, I fully agree. The story would have to change significantly in order to show anything other than exemplary display of good self-defence principles:
- avoid being in a shady location - check
- when getting in a sticky situation anyway, attempt to flee / defuse (good judgement on what to try first) - check
- if still in the threats phase: back off a bit to clearly demonstrate that you are not the aggressor, support that verbally - check
- If it is clear that the attacker ignores your pleas, do the minimum damage to STOP the attack safely. Based on that principle, he could have pulled & shot a lot sooner, but apparently wanted to be more defensive & nice than most would have been - check
You should not allow a verbally aggressive person to stay at a distance where they could land a punch or use a concealed knife at any time, especially after you backed off already. Try articulating near a cop’s face and see what (rightfully) happens.
I agree that Cook is the asshole here and deserves what he got, from a legal perspective though I have to disagree that shooting Cook was proportionate to the threat.
You describe Cook as the attacker, but there was no expressed threat of violence, only that he was big, and aggravated. Cook didn’t die but easily could have.
The issue with your claim of “no expressed threat of violence” is that you don’t have to express anything to attack someone from the stated distance before the victim can react.
The described actions are already quite aggressive, even with no “violent” expression. I’m honestly not sure you can claim a significant distinction between “aggresive” behavior and behavior that “expresses a threat of violence”. If you’ve never dealt with people who can flip that switch on a dime, I’m happy, but for most people that distinction is not a huge one.
You have someone you don’t know who is larger than you invade your personal space and start acting in an incomprehensible (and vaguely insulting) manner. You ask them to stop and attempt to distance yourself from them repeatedly but they continue. You attempt the least violent method of forcing them to stop but they continue.
This is an utter stranger. You don’t know their mental state, their level of sobriety or lack, if they’re mentally ill. You’ve tried everything that should be neccesary to stop a reasonable person.
At this point you can attempt to run (if you think you can get away from them fast enough, exacerbated by size difference), you can attempt to ignore them (despite all evidence that won’t work as asking them to stop did not)… you don’t know if any of these actions might flip a switch in them and change this from an uncomfortable invasion of space into a violent encounter.
You could call the police but if this turns violent you are potentially dead before they arrive.
Every second this continues is another second of not knowing if large aggressive crazy person is going to suddenly pull a knife or otherwise escalate further.
Or you can “make them” stop. Initiate violence yourself. Absolutely god awful terrible fucking idea, but easy to see how someone might think that’s the only option available to ensure their personal safety.
Real life isn’t DBZ, no one’s shouting “Ultra Shiv Technique!” or “Taste my ultimate sucker punch attack!”.
Is the expectation that everyone should be willing to allow themselves to be gut stabbed before they know for certain that they are in danger so they can then take self defensive action? Or is the issue that people don’t believe “gun” is a valid method of self defense due to the level of damage it so easily inflicts?
While I would hope someone would carry a less than lethal option, like mace or a tazer, I think this whole thing falls under “Fucked around and found out”
Spot on. Real life isn’t like the internet, when you act the aggressor the victim isn’t going to down vote your behavior, they’re going to run away or defend themselves.
Or is the issue that people don’t believe “gun” is a valid method of self defense due to the level of damage it so easily inflicts?
A lot of the comments in here make me think these people would be happier if this guy would have pulled a knife and stabbed the prankster vs doing the safer thing for them and just backing away and shooting. If this had happened to a woman I feel like all these comments would be commending her for defending herself but because it’s a male they think he should have invited him to a boxing ring to settle it like gentleman.
In summary, it’s a question of whether Colie’s response was proportionate to Cook’s threat. We’re going to disagree on that, in fact I suspect most American’s will disagree with most non-Americans on this. Ultimately the (American) court will decide.
