LEESBURG, Va. — After two days of testimony, the man who shot a 21-year-old YouTuber inside Dulles Town Center on video in April has been found not guilty on two charges of malicious wounding.
The jury found Alan Colie not guilty of aggravated malicious wounding or use of a firearm for aggravated malicious wounding, however, he was found guilty of firing a gun inside the mall. That guilty verdict has been set aside until a hearing to discuss it on October 19.
Colie, a DoorDash driver, was on trial for shooting Tanner Cook, the man behind the YouTube channel “Classified Goons,” at the Dulles Town Center back in April. Colie admitted to shooting Cook when he took the stand Wednesday but claimed it was self-defense.
The case went viral not because there was a shooting inside a mall, but because Cook is known to make prank videos. Cook amassed 55,000 subscribers with an average income of up to $3,000 per month. He said he elicits responses to entertain viewers and called his pranks “comedy content.”
Colie faced three charges, including aggravated malicious wounding, malicious discharge of a firearm within an occupied dwelling, and use of firearm for aggravated malicious wounding. The jury had to weigh different factors including if Colie had malicious intent and had reasonable fear of imminent danger of bodily harm.
Cook was in the courtroom when jurors were shown footage of him getting shot near the stomach – a video that has not yet been made public. Cook’s mother, however, left the courtroom to avoid watching the key piece of evidence in her son’s shooting.
The footage was recorded by one of Cook’s friends, who was helping to record a prank video for Cook’s channel. The video shows Cook holding his phone near Colie’s ear and using Google Translate to play a phrase out loud four times, while Colie backed away.
When he testified, Colie recalled how Cook and his friend approached him from behind and put the phone about 6 inches away from his face. He described feeling confused by the phrase Cook was playing. Colie told the jury the two looked “really cold and angry.” He also acknowledged carrying a gun during work as a way to protect himself after seeing reports of other delivery service drivers being robbed.
“Colie walked into the mall to do his job with no intention of interacting with Tanner Cook. None,” Adam Pouilliard, Colie’s defense attorney, said. "He’s sitting next to his defense attorneys right now. How’s that for a consequence?”
The Commonwealth argued that Cook was never armed, never placed hands on Colie and never posed a threat. They stressed that just because Cook may not seem like a saint or his occupation makes him appear undesirable, that a conviction is warranted.
“We don’t like our personal space invaded, but that does not justify the ability to shoot someone in a public space during an interaction that lasted for only 20 seconds,” Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Eden Holmes said.
The jury began deliberating around 11:30 a.m. Thursday. Shortly after 3:30 p.m., the jury came back saying they were divided and couldn’t come to a resolution. The judge instructed them to continue deliberating and later returned with the not-guilty verdict.
WUSA9 caught up with the Cook family following the verdict. When we asked Tanner Cook how he felt about the outcome, he said it is all up to God.
“I really don’t care, I mean it is what it is,” he said. “It’s God’s plan at the end of the day.”
His mother, Marla Elam, said the family respects the jury and that the Cook family is just thankful Tanner is alive.
“Nothing else matters right now,” she said.
Here’s the video by NBC Washington, apologies that it’s served by Discord
I’m not going to defend the shooting, but I think you’re taking the idea of being approached by two strangers (one of whom is behind you) way too lightly.
Without seeing the video it’s hard to say, but the situation sounds absolutely terrifying.
I added a link to the video in the post. Unfortunately the original was taken down, but I did have a cached version I could save and repost.
Have you never been approached by strangers before?
Yes, from behind like in this case. By a mugger.
Everyone who’s ever approached me in the manner of this “prank” has either attempted or done me harm. The dude didn’t know this was a prank. He told them several times to stop and they didn’t. His only safe bet was that the situation would continue to escalate.
“approached” - you seem to be performing Olympic-tier stretching to reduce this aggressive harassment and intimidation to “approached”.
This is incredibly disingenuous - it’s hard to take anything you say seriously through such. It’s also clear you aren’t actually here for any form of conversation, aren’t here to understand what happened as shown by video and conclude from that, and are instead here to just shill your anti-firearm point of view.
Beyond disappointing.
Not by someone who snuck up on me and played a recording in my ear while his friend watched.
Ah the phone is what makes this a situation that needs a corpse then
Please identify the corpse in this story. Or has making shit up to support your arguments been working out for you?
When you choose to shoot someone, you are choosing to kill. Hindsight is 20/20, when this occurred this guy chose to kill.
That may be your choice, but that doesn’t mean everyone thinks the way you do.
Removed by mod
Refusing to acknowledge reality and the very real facts of this case while constantly attempting to change the subject away from accountability for such are what psychologists refer to “denial” and “deflection”.
And, once again, nobody died here, proving that the shooting was not lethal.
Thanks for the input, but maybe you need to take a breather for a minute, try to understand the perspective of others, and then you can find better arguments to suit what you want to say? I assure you that accusing people of mental illness is not actually an argument in your favour or even against you, nor does mental illness actually prevent someone from having reasonable and subjectively correct opinions on various matters.