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.

  • BURN@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    There was absolutely threats. Coming at someone, shoving a phone in their face and aggressively speaking in an unfamiliar language absolutely is a threat.

    • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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

      The victim must have a reasonable apprehension of imminent injury or offensive contact. This element is established if the act would produce apprehension in the mind of a reasonable person. Apprehension is not the same as fear. Apprehension means awareness that an injury or offensive contact is imminent.

      Whether an act would create apprehension in the mind of a reasonable person varies depending upon the circumstances. For example, it may take less to create apprehension in the mind of a child than an adult. Moreover, if a victim is unaware of the threat of harm, no assault has occurred. For example, an assailant who points a gun at a sleeping person most likely has not committed an assault. Finally, the threat must be imminent, meaning impending or about to occur. Threatening to kill someone at a later date would not constitute an assault.

      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?

      • RedKrieg@lemmy.redkrieg.com
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        1 year ago

        Your very own quote applies here, the guy kept approaching a fleeing individual, that’s a “reasonable apprehension of imminent injury or offensive contact”. Someone much bigger than you running you down is not “safe”.

          • RedKrieg@lemmy.redkrieg.com
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            1 year ago

            I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you’re unaware of violent crime that does not involve guns? Lets put the gun aside for a moment and analyze whether or not the guy felt afraid. If someone walks up to you in the manner this guy did, you get afraid. It’s WHAT THE PERPETRATOR WANTED THE GUY TO DO! He even said that he kept approaching because the guy wasn’t reacting the way he wanted. He was escalating the threat to get a reaction. If the guy didn’t have a gun he would have swung instead of shooting when backing away clearly wasn’t working. Fight or Flight is called a “reaction” for a reason. It’s not a fully conscious process. This “prankster” only did what he did because he was so large and intimidating that he knew he didn’t have to fear physical reprisal for his obvious assaults.

      • BURN@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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

        • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          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.

          • RedKrieg@lemmy.redkrieg.com
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            1 year ago

            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.

            • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              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.

              • RedKrieg@lemmy.redkrieg.com
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                1 year ago

                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.

                • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  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.

          • BURN@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            That is imminent. Aggressively coming at someone and refusing to step away after being repeatedly asked to, as well as the victim trying to move away is absolutely threatening. Just because you’re some “big man” who doesn’t get scared doesn’t mean that others don’t have valid feelings about what is happening to them.

            As a minority if someone, especially a large white man with a camera, comes up to me yelling and aggressively shoving a phone in my face playing offensive statements from google translate then I’m 99% sure I’m about to be the victim of a hate crime. That’s the world we live in. Where anyone can be armed and fighting back is gambling with your life.

            I don’t carry, nor would I feel safer doing so, but this is a legitimate use of a weapon in self defense.

            • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              The aspect of the threat that is not imminent is the lethality.

              Person hasn’t touched you. Has not brandished a weapon. Has not said they were going to harm you.

              There is no jurisdiction in America where you don’t get charged with culpable homicide, be it murder or at best manslaughter. I don’t need to be some “big man” that not scared as you suggest. I can be scared. I possibly may even get killed.

              Possibility is not probability, let alone imminent probability.

              • BURN@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                What else is he supposed to do?

                He believed his life was in danger, which is a valid assumption based on the unhinged, aggressive behavior of the YouTuber and the mob behind him. There was absolutely an imminent danger to his life.

                There’s no crime here. It’s textbook self defense.