A 21-year-old prankster recording a practical joke for his YouTube channel at a mall in Virginia was shot in the abdomen on Sunday.
A bullet punctured the stomach and liver of Tanner Cook, 21, as he was recording footage for his YouTube channel Classified Goons, according to CBS affiliate WUSA. His channel has about 40,000 subscribers. (RELATED: ‘Got Me Up Here Smiling’: Brandon Marshall Pranks Patrick Mahomes With Fake Rihanna Quote)
YouTuber Tanner Cook was making a prank video in a Virginia mall and was shot by the person he was pranking. pic.twitter.com/kcM97ZikBj
— Daily Loud (@DailyLoud) April 4, 2023
“I was playing a prank, a simple practical joke, and this guy didn’t take it very well and shot me,” Cook told WUSA from his hospital bed. Cook remains in the hospital post-surgery.
Alan Colie, 31, of Leesburg, Virginia shot Cook with a pistol near the Cheesecake Factory in Dulles Town Center mall’s food court at 11:57 a.m.
Colie was charged with aggravated malicious wounding, shooting in the commission of a felony and discharging firearms within an occupied building.
Cook and Colie did not know each other prior to the prank, according to a Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office news release.
“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,” Cook’s father, Jeramy Cook, told WUSA.
“We need restoration, we need healing, and we need to come together,” he added.