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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.
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.
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.
Cops have “qualified” immunity, as citizens we are forced to take the threat level into account, or else we end up in court with what was it again? Two weapons charges and AWDW?
Not saying this dude should be charged, but he is, and now his life hangs in the balance of 12 “peers.” “Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6,” I know, but still, if you have enough time to back up and say “gtfo” 3x you can look at his hands real fast and see if something looks pointy, shooty, or text-y, and I’d rather mace him and keep rolling, case is easier to beat.
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?
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.
Yeah, how about taking the phone away? Why does it to be violence?
he tried to knock it away.
i will add here, i’m not keen to scuffle with someone who is 6’5" and hope i don’t end up beaten or shot myself. i see a lot of people here advocating a punch, but a lot of us also know that’s a potential fight we would lose.
disclaimer - i am not a gun owner. but i can understand some of the reasons why Colie reacted this way.
Let’s look at this scenario another way: if a 7 foot tall 400 pound dude goes up to a petite teenage girl and keeps smacking her in the face with a black object after she screams for them to stop repeatedly, she pulls out a knife and put it through his neck (because she cannot carry a gun yet), is she in the right?
Purely from a physical standpoint the FBI did extensive research on this subject decades ago in developing their guidelines for use of force, which reflects both in courts and which you also learn if you get trained for concealed carry.
The justification of deadly force is typically broken down as such: ability, opportunity, and intent. The first two are essentially crossed off in a scenario like this, you simply have no way of knowing if the 7 foot tall linebacker looking dude is a total softie or the 5 foot tall 95 pound granny got her black belt in middle age, and therefore have no way of determining right then and there the ability of the person across from yours ability to kill you with their bare hands or whatever object they happen to have within reach, AND ALSO that this can be accomplished faster than you can react, draw, aim, and fire.
Intent is the only reason why this guy is in court. Right now WE know there was no intent to cause grave bodily harm. But at that point in time, would a reasonable person being rather gently but persistently attacked with some object know this?
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What’s depressing is countries where self defense doesn’t exist. Where defending yourself is a crime that gets you locked up.
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Single braincelled 'murican posts again
I had a friend in Canada who defended his family against a home intruder with a firearm. He was locked up for trying to keep his kids and wife safe from somebody who broke into his safe space. He was locked up and even after getting out is not allowed to see his own children, even though the wife still stands behind his actions.
So sure, talk down to me because I’m American and I believe a man should be able to protect himself and his loved ones without ruining his life.
Defending is not escalating; if you escalate, you become the attacker.
So… you need to wait for this 6ft 5in dude to deck you in the face first?
(God this sounds like tryhard macho bullshit, but it’s true) If this prank YT douche had a knife he could have killed the guy before he could react. People are fragile, and the outcome of a violent altercation is often decided by the first blow.
If you’ve never taken an unexpected strike to the head or to one of the many sensitive spots in your torso, it’s nearly impossible to think straight in the moments after. I used to do some martial arts, and I’ve taken hits during sparring when hit where my gear didn’t cover. Hell, many hits even through sparring gear left me reeling. In a real fight someone with ill intent will capitalize on those moments where your head is spinning and it can be over in seconds, rather than your sparring partner immediately stopping, yelling “oh shit! are you ok?”, and you both falling over in a laughing fit at how in the hell he just managed to kick you in the throat because you dodged the exact wrong direction right into his damn foot so it hit you in the throat instead of your chest pad.
Guns aren’t the answer but this take is absolutely asinine.
This isn’t ”sparring” —that take is absolutely asinine—, this is ”Real Life™ GTFO”.
If a 6’5’’ dude seems like he might decide to deck you in the face, then you do whatever it takes to GTFO. Don’t wait around for the blows to start flying, don’t tell him three times to back away, you don’t need to prove how macho you are by “standing your ground”. Just give him a good push, and run away behind cover.
If he still acts like a threat, call the cops. Now you can take out your gun, machete, AR, whatever, and inform him it’s his turn to GTFO.
Not that the 6’5" idiot was much better:
If you decide to threaten/harass someone, and they remain calm, chances are you’re the one in danger.
Depends on location, time of day/night, et cetera. America is big, like whole EU big, there are both extremely safe and extremely dangerous places contained within.
It’s more than twice the size of the EU.
The EU is 1.6M sq mi. The USA is 3.7M sq mi.
Thanks, I was out and about at the time I saw his question, but realized that while I was unaware of the exact proportions myself he was just as capable as I was of looking it up, so I didn’t bother.
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The entire UK is the same size as 9 US states. The smallest 9, the smallest of which is just about the size of a small town.
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The USA is more than twice the size of the current EU. You can assume losing the UK didn’t account for a drop in the bucket.
Good question, love your uname.
Brazil is about as big. Nobody with a normal life carries weapons around.
Weeeelll because they aren’t* legally allowed to. Besides, we all know everyone in Brazil is already an off duty cop. We just not gonna talk about the RPG-7s in the Favelas though?
*(or is it now “weren’t” as of Ballscenario like last year?)
You’re legally allowed to own and carry most weapons, just not firearms. Also, you can own swords but not carry them, for historical reasons.
You have a distorted view of Brazil. Sure, Rio is a shithole, but even there only criminal gangs carry guns.
After bostanaro’s defeat, the government properly cracked down on “legally certified” gun ownership.
So that’s a “yes.”
It’s a meme about how every video from Brazil is some criminal with a gun interacting with someone else in brazil who surprise! happens to be a police officer in plain clothes with a gun of their own. This may surprise you, but I’m aware that not “everyone in Brazil” (which would include grandmothers and toddlers and shit) is actually an off duty cop.
So yes. “They don’t carry weapons” because “they aren’t legally allowed to carry the effective ones.”
In fact, https://www.npr.org/2022/08/13/1116989125/brazil-firearm-ownership-booms-gun-laws-loosen-bolsonaro
Legal gun ownership boomed with it “becoming legal.” This indicates that the reason those people weren’t is because it “wasn’t legal.” Those people want to carry, they just “follow the laws” unlike all those people who actually do carry guns in Brazil that we’re ignoring because they’re criminals.
Said “boom” was exclusive to rich, already illegally armed people. Notice the total number of registered gun owners doesn’t even reach 1% of the population? Again, you have a distorted view on things.
You’ve got to understand Brazil has some loaded history, despite being a relatively young nation. Between 1964 and 1990, the country underwent a USA-backed coup which, unsurprisingly, tried to americanize its population in several aspects. As a result, you have pockets of people brainwashed to think 'murica is the best and everything they do should be copied – mostly old rich fuckers and their kids, as poor people could see, or rather were forced to see, the reality of things.
Tbh I’m not exactly surprised to hear the people who bought guns were the people who could afford guns. The ones who can’t afford guns have to borrow a buddy’s and steal the one from the guy refilling the ATM.
Huh, history is interesting.
If you Mace someone you had better take them down. Without distance the mace may be a danger to you as much or more than the attacker.
Well guess we should just shoot him to avoid overspray huh? Lol, like it or not this is exactly a perfect use case for it, normal force was justified but deadly, we shall see what the court says I guess.
Yes.
Lol well we’ll see. Idk about you but if I can avoid the chance at prison (and have the time/ability to realize it’s his phone, of course), I’m using the mace which I keep for nondeadly threats on the nondeadly threat. DA in my area (and most areas actually) would definitely bring this case to trial, probably wouldn’t if I use normal force but still, if they do, simple assault is better than awdw and two gun charges in my humble opinion.