Who is Tanner Cook? YouTuber shot while playing a prank

Tanner Cook is a 21-year-old YouTube star known mostly for his prank videos. He has a YouTube channel called Classified Goons with over 38K subscribers as of this writing. During a prank that went awry at the Dulles Town Center mall, he was shot and sustained serious injuries to his stomach and liver. As a result, Cook is now hospitalized in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Thankfully, the medical team is optimistic that he will make a full recovery.

He has shown signs of improvement and even spoke to the media from his ICU bed. Despite the seriousness of his injury, Cook said he intends to continue creating content because it's his passion.

What exactly happened to Tanner Cook?

Although Tanner Cook is well known for creating prank videos, his latest attempt went sideways when he targeted the wrong person. On Sunday, Cook attempted to prank Alan Colie, a 31-year-old resident of Leesburg who was carrying a firearm.

Regrettably, Cook was shot during the troll. Colie was taken into police custody and charged with several serious offenses, including aggravated malicious wounding, using a firearm to commit a felony, and firing a weapon within a building.

Although the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office did not reveal the identity of the victim, court records and a judge at the Loudoun County General District Court hearing confirmed that Tanner Cook was the individual involved in the incident.

Despite his injury, Tanner Cook spoke to the media about the incident and shed some light on what happened. He revealed that Alan Colie did not react well to the prank, which ultimately led to the shooting. He said:

Here's what the internet had to say

The online community has reacted to the incident involving Tanner Cook, with YouTuber Jidon "JiDion" urging fellow pranksters to prioritize safety over content creation. This has sparked important conversations about responsible content creation:

Fans were curious about the nature of the prank that led to such a serious outcome:

Tragically, this is not the first time a prank video has led to a shooting incident. In 2020, 20-year-old Timothy Wilks was shot and killed while allegedly participating in a "prank" robbery that was being filmed for a YouTube video.

This incident serves as a reminder of the potential risks and consequences of certain types of pranks, and highlights the importance of exercising caution and good judgment when creating content for social media platforms.

About the author

Shreyan is an esports and gaming journalist at Sportskeeda, focusing on streamer content. He holds a Master's degree in English Literature, and journalism was the most logical next step for him. Although titles like FIFA 08 and GTA San Andreas acted as the catalyst for his love of video games, the exponential growth of the streaming community also propelled his interest in the genre. He also has a prior work experience of 2 years.

Shreyan considers factual and accurate content to be the most important as a creator and a reader. He ensures this by double checking every piece of information in his articles and sourcing it from streamers directly rather than depend on third parties. His works have caught the attention of the heavyweights, with the PR team of Sidemen (a YouTube group he’s been following since his teenage days) and Chess.com reaching out to him for sending exclusive press releases.

Shreyan would love to drop into the virtual world of FIFA/EA FC and explore it further but, he would recommend playing Red Dead Redemption 2 to gaming skeptics for its top-tier gameplay, story and characters. During his downtime, he enjoys balancing his interests in reading, watching films and sports, and of course, playing video games.

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