A young prankster was shot and critically injured over the weekend while filming yet another prank video for his YouTube channel.
Just before noon on Sunday, 21-year-old Tanner Cook went to the Dulles Town Center mall in Dulles, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., to shoot a video for his YouTube channel, Classified Goons. Cook and the rest of the Classified Goons are known for venturing into public places and pranking unsuspecting people going about their days. Among his many pranks, Cook has posed as a Target employee, stolen people’s shopping carts at Walmart, and pretended to urinate on the floor of a store. The channel has nearly 40,000 subscribers.
What Cook and his crew intended to do at the Dulles mall on Sunday is unclear, but what is clear is that Cook encountered a particularly uncooperative participant near the mall’s food court. According to reports, a fight broke out, and a suspect, later identified as 31-year-old Alan Colie of Leesburg, allegedly pulled out a semi-automatic pistol and shot Cook in the abdomen.
Cook was raced to the hospital, where medical teams discovered that the bullet had punctured his stomach and liver. Luckily, doctors believe that Cook will make a full recovery.
“I was playing a prank and a simple practical joke, and this guy didn’t take it very well,” Cook explained from his hospital bed in the ICU. “He didn’t say anything to me.”
Colie was arrested within minutes of the shooting, booked into the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center, and held without bond. He has been charged with aggravated malicious wounding, shooting in the commission of a felony, and discharging firearms within an occupied building. He is scheduled to appear in court again on May 3.
Despite the frightening experience, Cook insists that he will continue to make prank videos as soon as he recovers. His father, Jeramy Cook, told reporters that God has helped his family to remain calm and forgive the shooter.
“We need restoration, we need healing, and we need to come together,” Jeramy Cook said. “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.”
Though the Cooks appear to be in hopeful spirits, Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Chair Phyllis Randall is concerned about the impact the shooting will have on the community. “I’ve heard from so many of my constituents, and they’re traumatized,” Randall said. “The victims are more than just people directly involved. People have secondary trauma from this and may never walk back into this mall again.”
The incident remains under investigation. Reports indicate that police have used the camera footage from the thwarted prank video as evidence.
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