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.
News
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
view the rest of the comments
Not a threat to your fragility, a threat to your life. An imminent one. Here's a primer written for I don't know like thrid graders or something that goes into whether the common law recognizes a reasonable apprehension of immiment harm.
https://www.findlaw.com/injury/torts-and-personal-injuries/elements-of-assault.html
If you aren't a victim of common law assault, you have no valid, legal justification to use ANY force in self defense. The dude's conduct was offensive and aggressive, no doubt.
But what fact gives rise to a reasonable apprehension of serious, imminent threat to life? The dude was unarmed.
You say phone, approaching, foreign language. Sounds like you want to be able to shoot foreigners who walk up to you. How do you know the person isn't asking for help?
In America where everyone is possibly armed there would absolutely be a threat of imminent harm. Delivery drivers are more likely to be shot than cops. It’s not that hard to make the connection that he was fearing for his life
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.