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
The victim was assaulted. That’s what matters.
The victim was assaulted.
The victim clearly communicated his desire for the interaction to end. Several times.
The victim attempted to flee the situation. Several times.
The victim attempted physical resistance.
After all this, he still had two physically imposing people forcing confrontation on him. He clearly did not just the bare minimum but in fact pretty much did everything that anyone ever asks a self-defense shooting defender to do before resorting to a gun.
Even in this thread, all these people who can't stand the thought of this poor guy being not guilty can't really come up with any further reasonable thing they'd have expected this guy to do. He was out of options to peacefully end the situation.
The other big thing that so many armchair quarterbacks here don't seem to account for is just how fast and how unpredictable dangerous encounters happen. The fact that there were two attackers, and that they were both bigger than the victim and both within 10 feet of him meant that if they decided at any moment to escalate their assault to violence, by the time the victim realized that's what was about to happen (if he even did realize it before it began) it was already too late. They'd be able to close the distance and physically restrain him before he'd have time to draw, aim, and fire.
Sure, we all know now that this idiot was just an idiot and not a violent threat, but the victim didn't have that benefit of hindsight, and in the situation, he knew he was being targeted and that if he waited for violence to happen to him, it'd be too late. Too many here want to pick it all apart and think it over for a few hours, then say what the victim should have done with his mere seconds to figure it out.
If anything, he showed incredible restraint. He repeatedly attempted to deescalate, to no avail, and even when making the decision to use his gun in self defense, he immediately stopped once the immediate threat was addressed, and then shifted back to a less lethal form of deescalation: retreat.
Being realistic, if the moron attacker is already well enough to attend the trial, that's even pretty low damage. He's lucky for that shot placement (intentional or not).
Imagine the comments here if, instead of being a gun carrier, the guy was some kind of martial arts dude and instead of shooting him, he punched him in the face or something and when he went down, he hit his head and died. Nobody would be demonizing the guy then, even though he fucking killed a guy. That people are doing it now shows that they're just so anti-gun that details and logic don't matter.
Because 9/10 times you punch a guy they don't die, 9/10 times you shoot a guy in the chest they do.
Jesus christ, try thinking with your brain before you unload a wall of bullshit defending dumb as fuck gun culture. The entire rest of the world lives their lives without being strapped all day and immediately resorting to deadly force like paranoid wack jobs.