This is the shocking moment a 21-year-old YouTuber prankster’s stunt went badly wrong when a delivery driver he was targeting pulled out a gun and shot him in the chest.
Video shows Tanner Cook, 21, who runs the Classified Goons YouTube channel, harassing Alan Colie as he picked up a food order at the Dulles Town Center mall in Sterling, Virginia, on April 2.
Cook can be seen following Colie around the mall while thrusting his phone in his face as it plays the bizarre phrase, ‘Hey dips**t, quit thinking about my twinkle’ multiple times using a Google Translate app.
Colie backs away from Cook and tells him to stop three times before trying to knock the phone away from his face as the YouTuber continues to advance towards him.
It was at this point that Colie’s stunt went badly wrong when the delivery driver pulled out a gun and shot the YouTuber in the lower left chest.
The shooting sparked panic as shoppers fled what they feared to be a mass shooting as police officers pinned Colie to the ground and arrested him. He was charged with aggravated malicious wounding, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, and discharging a firearm inside a building.
But last week, Colie, who has a license to carry a concealed weapon, was found not guilty of aggravated malicious wounding in the shooting after he said he was acting in self defense.
He was found guilty on a lesser charge of shooting into an occupied dwelling but a judge will hear arguments to set aside this conviction at a hearing next month after his lawyer appealed against it. If found guilty of this lesser firearms count, he faces up to ten years in prison.
One of Colie’s defense attorneys Adam Pouilliard said that his client felt menaced by the 6 foot 4 inches tall Cook during the confrontation, which was designed to provoke a reaction and to draw viewers to his YouTube channel.
Pouilliard said Cook ‘is trying to confuse people to post videos. He’s not worried that he’s scaring people. He keeps doing this’.
Cook’s ‘Classified Goons’ channel, which has more than 50,000 subscribers, is known for his controversial stunts, like pretending to vomit on Uber drivers and following unsuspecting customers through department stores.
Cook was left fighting for his life following the shooting and spent several days in intensive care after the bullet pierced through his stomach and liver.
The YouTuber insisted during the trial that he had no inkling he had scared or angered Colie during the prank – despite the delivery driver telling him to stop three times before trying to knock the phone away from his face.
Cook testified last week 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.
Prosecutor Eden Holmes had said during the trial that the facts of the case don’t support a self-defense argument, as Colie’s lawyer had argued.
The law requires that Colie reasonably fear that he was in imminent danger of bodily harm, and that he use no more force than is necessary. She said Cook’s prank was bizarre but not threatening.
