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.
Everyone sucks here.
The prankster is harassing and intimidating people in public to make money. I hope he learned a lesson.
The shooter probably did have good cause to use physical force to defend himself. Had he punched the prankster or used pepper spray, I'd call it 100% justified. He used a gun though, and this harassment didn't justify deadly force.
You cannot know how scared he was when a much larger man kept advancing on him.
I'm not a fan of American gun culture, but in this particular case the prankster got a big cup of fuck-around-and-find-out.
Yeah, the tricky part about the “this didn’t justify lethal force” argument is that it’s impossible to truly justify lethal force unless you wait for them to use lethal force first. You could be getting attacked by an 8’ tall 380 pound giant, but if the attacker is unarmed there will still be someone in the comments going “why not use pepper spray or a taser instead? Getting punched doesn’t justify lethal force.” The goalposts are constantly moving, to the point that you basically need to wait for an attacker to stab/shoot you before you respond.
That’s why the courts don’t use public opinion. The self defense laws are (at least in Stand Your Ground states) written in a way that the victim simply needs to fear for their life, or for the life of another. As long as they can justify that fear to a jury, they’ll be fine. And the jury will constantly be reminded that as long as they believe the shooter feared for their life, the shooter should be allowed to walk.
Agreed, and I do not think that the shooter should have shot the YouTuber, just that the YouTuber (and those like him) are pressing so many buttons that someone is bound to react unexpectedly. Add American gun culture to that and it creates this kind of shit storm.
In the world that has been created in the USA, the shooters reaction was within "reason" and there is a good chance the jurors will agree. That doesn't mean anyone thinks that anyone deserved to be shot necessarily, just that the shooter was in reasonable fear and that the YouTuber merely faced the consequences of his own actions.
Legal, and I think moral justification is not based on how emotionally scared he was. Legal justification for deadly force requires a belief based on evidence and logic that the defender was about to be maimed or killed, or become the victim of a short list of felonies.
His lawyer will likely try to make that case to the jury, but a size disparity and weird behavior without an explicit threat or actual physical harm is going to be a tough sell for deadly force.
I don't know American law, and frankly I don't care because the justice system is shit. But despite that, the jury is urged to put themselves in the shoes of the shooter and use his intent to decide his level of guilt.
Logically and morally, in today's world the shooter is likely justified in his action but the law hasn't got there yet. Not that it will with gun culture the way that it is.
Do I think he should have shot someone? No. Do I still think the YouTuber got what he deserved? Yes. Both of these things can be true at the same time.
Weird behavior? Try "overtly aggressive" behavior
The purpose of the prank was to confuse the victim. While he is confused, he is, by the prankster's intention, stuck in a situation he has never been in before. New situations are hard to assert properly. He was shoved a phone to his face, multiple times, aggressively, not sure why or whats coming next.
You know there are drugs with which its enough to inhale just a few grains of their powder to be affected and controlled? What if the phone was laced with such a drug? What if the words from the phone sounded like a threat?
So many different thoughts run through the head in an intentionally confusing situation that is also aggressive and threatenning. I dont blame the shooter here.
I tried punching an attacker once and ended up with brain damage as a result of losing the fight. Now I carry a weapon and I’m not going back to fists with all the uncertainty their use entails.
Ehhh, it depends.
Alan asked Tanner to stop and retreated several times, but Tanner just kept advancing on him. Alan was just doing his job and was presumably alone, but Tanner was with a group of friends. Tanner was taller than Alan and is a pretty big guy, so it would be reasonable for Alan to feel threatened. Throwing a punch against a bigger guy who’s with his friends wouldn’t be a great move. I watched Tanner’s “I got shot!” video and he was wearing fairly loose clothing; if he were dressed similarly for this prank, it would have been easy for him to conceal a weapon of his own. Even if he didn’t have a weapon, his friends might have had one. So now, even if Alan had pepper spray, it’s not a great option since he could end up getting ganged up on. The text that Tanner’s phone was reading could have been construed as being homophobic (I assume you know what a “twink” is), particularly without the benefit of tone to judge, and even if Alan isn’t gay, he still reasonably could have believed that Tanner thought he was and was targeting him for this. And finally, Tanner’s behavior was probably very suspicious - beyond just what’s described in the article. First of all, he’s trespassing, having been thrown out by security the day prior, and was trying to avoid security. Secondly, in his “I got shot!” video he does this thing where he stares at you slack-jawed. It’s off putting in the video and I’m sure it’s worse in person. It would be reasonable for Alan to believe Tanner was on meth, coke, heroin, etc., and was trying to shake him down for drug money. Note that “twinkie” is - according to UrbanDictionary, at least - slang for a bag of drugs worth a certain amount of money ($20 back in 2005).
On the other hand, Tanner didn’t have a weapon out, nor did his friends; he didn’t touch Alan; and this all happened in a public place.
But if Alan believed that Tanner was on drugs, their being in public doesn’t matter. We know security wasn’t around and drug addicts have a reputation for illogical behavior, so he could have very well feared they might kill him in front of a group of people. And since Alan had reason to believe Tanner or his friends might be carrying, pulling his gun and giving them a chance to respond - possibly pulling their own guns and shooting him - wouldn’t have made sense, either.