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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
How was it an assault?
By legal definition, assault is an intentional, offensive, or harmful act that may cause reasonable anxiety or fear of expected injury.
Don’t care what the legal definition is. My definition is that is not an assault
Are we allowed to use alternative definitions now? My definition of assult is someone contunuing to use previously refuted statements.
Classic willful ignorance. Thanks for clarifying that you’re not worth engaging with in the future.
Not willful ignorance, just a low effort troll
Well fucking shoot me then ffs
When we’re just casually disregarding pesky things like definitions, how can you actually expect any form of genuine conversation to take place? You’re playing pretend from the start.
I am using a definition
No, you’re using your definition that you’ve pulled out of your ass. The real definition is different.
Words have meaning, and hopefully you learn that before you graduate high school and have to deal with the real world.
Yes I am using my definition. Are you saying speech is violence? This was playing audio next to someone. Nothing physical. You’d have to argue that playing audio is some kind of violence that justifies killing
Alright, if it was just playing audio next to someone, I’d agree with you. You’re intentionally leaving out important details to the situation.
Well, the good thing is that the judge and jury weren’t wrong like you are.
In a violent society of course they wouldn’t. That’s the sin of it all. Its normalized
I’m just gonna take a different approach here. That’s not a definition. That’s just a statement. You actually have to give a description of the criteria for what constitutes as “Assault” to make a definition. Why isn’t it assault?
And I’m telling you sound out of a phone is not am assault. Is speech violence?
It can be, yeah. Sound can be damaging, sometimes irreversibly for people.
A very tall stranger shoving his phone in your face while saying nonsense is inherently intimidating.
Or, are you confused because, legally, assault is the threat of violence while battery is the actual violence?
So blow their brains out. Totally justified response in certain cultures
No one got their brains blown out.
Just shot a non threatening kid because they were annoying
No, he shot a very large stranger that came up behind him and started aggressively shoving their phone at his head abs kept following him as he backed away. It’s completely reasonable to feel threatened in that situation.
Not life threatening. Completely reasonable to feel threatened in many safe situations. Which is why walking around armed leads to this negligence and the devaluing of human life to justify it.
You weren’t in the situation, so you have no idea how Cook felt. It’s easy to look back after the fact and say that things should have been done differently.
Luckily, a jury disagrees with you.
How he felt is objective and not as relevant as the facts which are these kids did not actually pose a threat let alone one that was life threatening. A jury in america would think he was not guilty. Because the culture in many place in America does not value life.
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You clearly don’t know what the word murder means.
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Murder is defined as the unlawful and premeditated killing of one person by another.
That is not what happened here.
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No, murder is the premeditated and intentional killing of another person.
Murder does not mean killing someone in self defense.
No, murder is the premeditated and intentional killing of another person. Killing someone isn’t automatically murder.
He defended himself against someone who was assaulting him, which he has every right to do. That is a fact, whether you like it or not.
The extent to which you’re victim blaming here is beyond absurd.
Yea cause the real victim is the guy who had sounds player next to his ear. Not Not the guy who was shot.
You’re doing it again. That’s pretty awful behavior.
I guess that’s awful but negligently shooting kids is cool
You’re the only one claiming that.
Assault is words, you, along with most everyone else, are confusing assault with battery.
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Not confusing anything. Its not an assault that warrants any kind of violent reaction let alone a fatal one
Nobody died. You’ve been told this several times, yet continue insisting on using language like “deadly” and “fatal”. You seem to have trouble reading.
So shooting to what? Say hello
Shooting to end the situation that has escalated to what appeared to be a dangerous degree.
Saying get away would have been enough.
He literally did that.
and then escalated to shooting that’s the problem. Assessed wrong while carrying a firearm. Kid could be dead
I don’t presume to know what other people are thinking. I suggest you try that.
Best to shoot anyways just in case.
Try again
so you can reload?