Moment YouTube prankster Tanner Cook’s stunt goes badly wrong when shopper he is targeting pulls out a gun and shoots him in the chest

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.

‘They were playing a silly phrase on a phone,’ the prosecutor said. ‘How could the defendant have found that he was reasonably in fear of imminent bodily harm?’

Colie testified in his own defense about the fear that Cook’s prank elicited. 

Defense attorney Tabatha Blake said Colie 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’.

Pouilliard said during closing arguments that Colie is aware of the dangers that delivery drivers can face as they interact with the public and that he has a license to carry a concealed weapon.

Despite whatever events precipitated the shooting Cook’s father, Jeramy Cook, said the incident was shocking and unnecessary.

‘They were making a video at the mall and trying to have fun with people and this guy wasn’t having fun,’ he said.

‘There was a phone that was around him and they were interviewing or talking to him, and he didn’t like it and he pulled out his gun and shot my son.’

Jeramy Cook emphasised that his family’s faith in God to get them through this trying time.

‘We need restoration, we need healing, and we need to come together.’

‘I pray for this young man and pray that he finds God in this. I believe that God saved our son’s life, and he could have easily died but that’s not the outcome. God has plans for my son,’ he said, noting that he bears no ill will toward Colie. 

The jury was initially ‘divided in terms of whether the defendant acted in self defense’ but eventually delivered its verdicts at the end of the day. Collie was found not guilty of aggravated malicious wounding but was convicted on a lesser firearms count.

Colie’s defense attorney Adam Pouilliard said the conviction on the firearms charge is inconsistent with the law, given Colie’s acquittal on self defense grounds. 

He asked the judge to set aside the conviction. A judge will hear arguments on the issue at a hearing next month.

Colie, who has been in custody since his April arrest, will remain incarcerated.

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. 

He spoke from his hospital bed at the time of the incident and said he was just playing a joke on Colie.

‘I was playing a prank and a simple practical joke, and this guy didn’t take it very well,’ he told WUSA9. 

Cook also insisted the incident will not deter him from continuing to make videos and has posted three videos since. 

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 on 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. 

Cook said he continues to make the videos, from which he earns $2,000 to $3,000 a month. 

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