- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
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
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I’m glad he got off on the first two charges, but his lawyer argues that the third charge, “shooting in an occupied dwelling” shouldn’t be applicable since it was deemed self defence. The judge will be hearing arguments for this next month.[1]
Also, dude’s now spent 6 months in jail, only to be found not guilty of at least 2/3rds of the charges. Is there any compensation he’ll get for those missing months of his life? He’s already been punished, and yet he’s still presumed innocent.
It is certainly a weird conclusion. You CAN defend yourself. You CAN defend yourself with a gun. You CANNOT defend yourself with a gun indoors?
No no. You can defend yourself with a gun indoors. You just can’t shoot it. Perhaps a pistol whipping?
More that the nature of the indoors location had an increased likelihood of hitting a innocent bystander.
Maybe you’re more justified in somebody if it’s a 2-on-1 situation and you feel like your life is threatened, but pull out a gun and start blasting and you also put the lives of anyone within a certain distance around your target in danger.
Given the lack of apparent weapons on the “assailants”, drawing on them might have been sufficient to disengage and assess without actually needing to fire the weapon at all
Doesn’t that infringe everyone’s right in the building not to get shot while shopping?
Only the ones that aren’t threatening someone else.
Was it only the idiot YouTuber and the guy defending themselves or were there other people in danger?
It’s ok, the prankster blocked it with his stomach and saved everyone. He’s a hero.
Sounds to me like two idiots out other people in danger.
One idiot put one idiot in danger - don’t victim blame.
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That’s why in most places only hollow point bullets are legal for self defence. They are designed to mushroom out and break up when they hit something. This makes them ideal self defence rounds for 2 reasons. They have a ton more stopping power against an unarmored tarket (odds are your mugger isn’t wearing kevlar). Aditionally they usually don’t really survive going through walls. Even just sheet rock walls are usually enough to completely kill the momentum of any fragments that might make it though. If you use FMJ rounds for self defence then you’re going to catch a completely different charge.
He’d probably need to file a suit against the state or the YouTuber.
If he’s only cleared on 2/3 charges in the end, they’ll just slap a minimum of 6 months on him and call it time served.
He probably doesn’t have a leg to stand on suing the YouTuber if only cleared on 2/3 charges.
If he is cleared of all charges, he can sue the pants of both.
But lawsuits are expensive.
And I’m sure he’s already spent a ton on a lawyer.
If he is cleared of al charges, there will definitely be lawyers interested in his lawsuit esp for the publicity.
Those types of cases are usually taken on contingency, so money isn’t a huge factor.
No, not for criminal defense
Considering what’s being discussed is a civil lawsuit…
Oh i see
I was speaking to getting a lawyer to sue the city and YouTuber, not the criminal trial.
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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.
Quick correction, he was found guilty of discharging a firearm in a building, the other charge “use of firearm for aggravated malicious wounding” was one of the two the jury found him not guilty on.
Edited ty
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Self-defense ≠ murder. They are two legally distinct terms. Perhaps you should look them up, as you seem unfamiliar with their definitions.
21 year old teenager?
Just because a 21 year old YouTube prankster has the mental and emotional capacity of a teenager, does not make them a teenager. They should know better.
If some random idiot wants to try and fuck with me and I don’t know them and I TEL THEM TO STOP and they persist. They get whatever I give them. If I have my kids they get no warning. I don’t fucking play and I don’t care about them. My safety and that of my kids is first. Do NOT FUCK WITH STRANGERS. PERIOD.
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No man. Just doing fucking mess with people. End of the story. You want to act like a loon go for it. Those actions have consequences. I’m under no obligation to make sure you aren’t hurt for acting a fool neither is anyone else in this world. Stop acting like a cunt because people don’t want to or will not put up with being harassed. My first instinct isn’t to harm someone and least of all kill them. However I won’t fuck around if my safety or children’s safety is potentially at risk.
I think the key here is the fact there were 2 people who approached Colie. That substantially shifts the power balance. Its one thing when its 1 on 1 alone and the other person isn’t directly harming you yet, but acting threatening.
When you add a second person who is also engaging in your personal space though, the balance shifts and I think thats what completely justifies a preventative self defence, because when it comes to 2 on 1 you’re margin of safety thins dramatically.
To be specific:
If a single person is threatening you, then abruptly shifts to try and attack you, you have a fairly decent window of safety. You can turn and flee, you can push them away, etc etc. You’re ability to defend yourself after attacked is still quite reasonable.
If two people are threatening though, those options shrink down a lot. The second person can block off your escape, they can both grab you, etc. Once any of that happens you’re ability to defend yourself after attacked is very very unlikely.
So when its 2 on 1, you are a lot more justified to just shoot the person before they actually attack you, because you likely won’t get the chance to shoot them anyways after they attack.
In other words, if Cook hadn’t brought a friend along I think the outcome would have been very very different.
I think also a big part of why Colie was found not-guilty is that he disengaged, said 3 times “stop” including attempting to swipe away Cook, and only then did he take violent action to end the perceived threat. He fired a single round low into Cook, and then immediately retreated from the scene.
The argument at hand isn’t whether or not he was acting in self defence, but whether he used proportional force to justify it as such, and the jury found that it was proportional, likely due to the factors you described.
America is such a fucking insane country.
He fired a single round low into Cook, and then immediately retreated from the scene.
What clinical fucking bullshit. He tried to murder a stranger because they annoyed him for 20 seconds.
I think you are more on the clinical bullshit side.
First of all murder requires intend, planning, using the victims helplessness or particular cruelity.
Second of all, if the guy actually wanted to kill the other one, he wouldn’t have given off a single shot. He would have continued shooting.
Now whether it was appropriate as self defense, or whether people should be rolling around with guns in public in general can be up for debate. But clearly getting robbed and murdered is much more common in the US than in most developed countries, so the driver had more reason to fear for his life if two dudes just jump him. If he had probable reason to fear for his life then using the firearm seems to be an appropriate tool of self defense. And i say that as someone who is against people just casually running around with guns like it is normal in many US states.
Second of all, if the guy actually wanted to kill the other one, he wouldn’t have given off a single shot. He would have continued shooting.
If he didn’t want to kill him, he wouldn’t have pulled out a gun and fucking shot him.
It is impossible to live life without feeling fear, if you carry a gun, you have a responsibility to not immediately react to any pecieved fear by whipping it out and firing it off like a fucking nutjob.
The nutjob is the one accosting strangers in the mall for youtube content.
A situation can have multiple nutjobs.
Yes, yes it can. In this situation, we have one normal guy just trying to live his life in peace. We have one nutjob harassing him for the lulz and giggles from like minded nutjobs. Finally, there’s a second nutjob defending his behavior right here on this very forum.
Sure, then we look at which nut job started the problem, and a jury of his peers figured out that it wasn’t the shooter
I’m curious to know if more people agree with your view that shooting someone doesn’t seem like a proportional response based on what we know, ot if the YouTubers deserves it.
Again you claim that he wanted to kill him, when his actions proved otherwise. That he accepted the death of the guy as a possibility of his actions is not the same as directly wanting to kill him. But thena gain he made it reasonably believable that he feard for his life in that moment, so calculating every possible outcome was not on his brains agenda.
you have a responsibility to not immediately react to any pecieved fear by whipping it out and firing it off
What about “immediately” after telling the guy to stop 3 times, trying to retreat 3 times, and trying to swipe off his phone off your face?
He didn’t immediately do it. He asked them to stop multiple times.
Colie could’ve punched this guy in the head and killed him.
Would you be here lamenting the poor innocent… professional sociopath… if the dude just shoved him away and he split his skull on the pavement?
This asshole, the Youtuber, did everything he could think of to raise the expectation of physical violence, while still playing I’m-not-touching-you. That’s his entire schtick. He wants an intense response. That response is what hu-man be-ings do, when you threaten them.
But you act like he could stick a toy gun in people’s faces, and laugh it off when they scream and cry and fight back, because ‘it’s just a toy, and toys can’t cause real harm!’
Here is the only thing that counts:
What did the victims think was happening?
Except he didn’t do any of the imaginary situations you made up to justify his paranoia. He played a cellphone sound in his face.
Lie to someone else.
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Have you considered not defending insane paranoid gun culture?
This is definitionally an ad hominem argument; i.e. you’re attacking people in place of actually attacking the argument.
But to refute your attacks on people’s character, I’m just going to say, you’re from lemmy.ca, so I imagine you’re Canadian. sndmn is also lemmy.ca, so I imagine they’re a Canadian. If you check @[email protected], the account I’ve been using until I signed up to my current instance, as well as the content I interact with, you’ll see that I’m a Canadian.
As for the idea that maybe I’m some pro-gun PoS, I’m radically anti-gun. I think our gun laws in Canada are much too lax. The fact that pigs walk around with guns means that criminals are more likely to carry guns as well.
Not if I’m to emapthise with the person in the video, instead of making emotional judgements reliant solely on reading articles and a 3rd person video perspective, I can try to understand that people living in the US are painfully aware that those around them are constantly surrounded by guns. I can also try and understand that if you have an easy “fuck off” button that carries big consequences with it, you’ll be quicker to jump to it the moment things get dicey.
I do think he was too quick to pull out the gun, but seeing as he’s a human, I also understand people make hasty decisions that are suboptimal. So if I look at things outside a clinical perspective and consider how I’d react in such a situation, with at least two much larger men playing something weird in my ear, chasing me, and continuing to play it as I try to disengage - them refusing to allow me to disengage, I can very well see why someone who would go for the big fuck-off button.
Maybe I describe it in a clinical way - that’s just what it’s like to be neurodivergent for some people. But the reality is that my perspective is defined by my empathy for the person, despite not being someone who’s had to suffer living in a gun-happy country, and despite being someone who, based on life experience, would likely die before pulling that big fuck off button on someone.
Try empathising with someone for a bit instead of jumping to “guns are the problem.” The only problem with guns is that they were involved at all. Any situation with a gun is more deadly than without, but the reality of the dystopia that is the USA is that situations have guns.
God help you if you ever get mugged, because you’re never going to see it coming.
Try travelling around the world just once in your life and you might see the majority of it operating just fine without people shooting teenagers in a mall over a prank.
This was assault.
Playing a cellphone by your ear does not justify deadly force in any mind but the absolute most deludedly paranoid.
The jury has shown the state of the average American these days.
Chasing someone, inches away, staring dead into their eyes, while someone sneaks up from behind and they keep telling you to fuck off - is assault.
You only call this a prank because you’ve spent no time imagining it from the victim’s perspective. He had no goddamn idea what was going on. All visual and physical cues were deliberately engineered to cause confusion and fear and provoke a reaction.
This was assault.
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You my friend are an idiot !
Dude they will never get it because they do not equate these actions with fear and cowardice. They see the man with the gun as the tough guy, not the paranoid weirdo that he is.
Even the sane Americans that back gun control, etc. share this bias. They have grown up round this shit, it’s ingrained.
The problem with Americans, is they live among people who actually are out to get them… and they don’t seem to be doing much to try and fix that.
Even scarier, one of those two approached from behind.
Which radically shifted the balance in his favor when in court. Virginia is a “duty to retreat” state and having the other guy behind him meant he was surrounded.
I believe you have it backwards. Virginia law has “NO duty to retreat”.
If I threaten to harm you, you don’t gotta try and escape first, you can strike.
You’re both wrong about how the duties arise and come up in court as elements of the charge.
The duty on someone privileged to self defend is to use reasonable force, no more than is warranted by the seriousness of the threat and its imminence. Unless the state has a stand your ground statute, evidence showing the defendant could have backed away or otherwise retreated gets admitted and the jury gets instructed that a threat is not considered imminent the facts prove the defendant could have retreated. It’s an implied duty.
In this case, the threat was obviously imminent. The question is whether it was sufficient to justify self defense by lethal force. I think not.
A risk of mere bodily harm is insufficient to warrant countervailing deadly force. There are no facts the defendant can point to, in my opinion, to show his life was in danger.
He testifies that he subjectively felt his life was in danger. I don’t think it was objectively reasonable. I think the facts give rise only to an inference that he was in for a beating.
Thanks for the sane reply! But your comments seem all over the place given differing laws in different jurisdictions.
Then tried playing the “I’m not touching you” game.
For context, I’m a liberal gun owner who doesn’t carry all the time.
At first, I felt the shooter was on very thin ice. Your comment completely shifted my view on the situation. I might well have taken the shot myself, given the 2 on 1, and one coming from behind.
And remember kids! This is why we wait for a court of law to bring out the evidence before forming a solid opinion!
Thanks you so much for changing my mind, and doing so in a sane and logical manner.
Follow up question about power difference. What if the defender is say really small or weak. Say a 5 foot 60 year old woman and 1 6canf half feet tall young man. Would she have a fastee right to self defense?
When “it’s just a prank bro” goes too far. Imagine having consequences to your actions.
Just another reminder how stupid American laws on weapons are. In every normal country this couldn’t happen because that guy wouldn’t have a gun in the first place. It would have ended in a fight or in the shooter suing the prankster and getting a lot of money while the prankster would be told by court to stop this stupid pranks.
The moment a gun is involved, every single confrontation has a skyrocketing rate of lethality.
Deadly weapons make situations more deadly?
I dunno, doesn’t add up.
Do note that this isn’t an exclusive statement; a knife is also extremely deadly.
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I don’t. The string at the end of my comments is a digital signature which serves as a means to verify that I was the one that posted it, and that it wasn’t modified by an admin, or any other external entity.
content-signature:GHnwqVFVDJFDAGt7Xg1oQecp04BoH+qJucdpFOblrg+YxSx8Vp7DfxEQudqcxK1+7yiOjgKvnVDCRP6oU7XTjttdl6sdMpFq9LcFHQ6OlVtjsvaSoIobck4ARimWs5vvTYMTBp6kCNYmhczFniJ52q3Blps7G1bw5q7sOf1z4rWG+CB99jb//02+x6KVjllnoiZJdVhqfa69dryG49W8QxTLvHqr20kTmAQzEpAK/kWgGL2/FLNhUYjvmVQtQAUJlXo/GJtj93AHyrApqwXEVmGSe/imIrosGgugG3UZSRGJzYd+/KwOVxsZNkTe+eMIyV8ceeouy9LcorEKJ1mq/g==How does it verify that?
For more in depth information, I’ll refer you to this Wikipedia article on digital signatures. But, the long and short of it is that I distribute a public key which would be used alongside that signature to verify if that signature was generated by my private key for the content that is contained in the given post.
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My brother had a gun pulled on him while delivering a pizza. I don’t blame delivery people for arming themselves with the unfamiliar situations they have to put themselves in regularly. So long as the strangers they interact with may be armed it’s just an arms race.
Also, in this specific situation where someone comes up behind you and gets in your face something like a knife would be just as deadly.
So long as the strangers they interact with may be armed it’s just an arms race.
I don’t fully understand – are you stating this as a counterargument to allowing citizens to arm themselves?
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I don’t own a gun, but I might if I didn’t feel safe in my day-to-day life.
Yeah, instead we get the guy being shot but continuing to do his stupid bullshit. That laws in the US are broken.
I don’t understand your point. Are stating that if the victim didn’t have a gun – meaning that the shooting didn’t happen – then the perpetrator wouldn’t be continuing this behaviour?
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The whole being shot just shows how quick to violence and homicide Americans are. It’s like, the solution to everything these days. Dealing with people the past few years in public is pretty dicey, just asking someone not to cut in front of you at the checkout line could potentially lead to a mass shooting these days.
It seems like the best outcome would be: person having their personal space invaded tells the “perp” to stop it.
The best outcome, sure, but not a guaranteed outcome.
judge orders to cease their invasive harassment against other people.
That’s not really how the law works. If It is already illegal to harass people, then the court order would essentially be along the lines of “I order you to stop doing illegal things!”.
The whole being shot just shows how quick to violence and homicide Americans are. It’s like, the solution to everything these days. Dealing with people the past few years in public is pretty dicey, just asking someone not to cut in front of you at the checkout line could potentially lead to a mass shooting these days.
It isn’t entirely fair to group unprovoked violence with self-defence. There is an argument that could be made for proportional response in defence, but this is a separate issue.
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Hey man, if he had to carry pepper spray or something instead how would you know he loves freedome eagle flags and trucks?
Hm, I’m not sure how practical this is. If one must defend themself, would it not be best to always be sure that one has the absolute best means of successfully doing so? I would argue that carrying a firearm increases these odds far more than carrying pepper spray.
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I take issue with some of the wording that you use.
it’s best to just kill the shit out of anyone
An argument could be made for reasonable, and proportional response given the context involved; however, do note that when one is trained for the use of a firearm in self-defence, they aren’t trained to make a killing shot, they are, instead, trained to shoot for center mass to ensure the highest chance of striking their target.
anyone you think might be a threat
There should be no “might” involved. You act when you are certain that there is an immediate threat.
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I agree that easy access to find isn’t great but this is a text book case of self defense.
In every normal country this couldn’t happen because that guy wouldn’t have a gun in the first place.
Are you referring to a shooting in self-defence by a law-abiding gun owner? If so, then yes, if said law-abiding citizen didn’t have a gun, then, by modus tollens, they wouldn’t be able to use a gun in self-defence.
It would have ended in a fight or in the shooter suing the prankster and getting a lot of money while the prankster would be told by court to stop this stupid pranks.
You state “ended in a fight” as if that implies that the total damage imparted on both parties would be less overall. You completely miss the fact that physical violence can quite easily end fatally.
At any rate, wouldn’t a victim defending themself successfully, efficiently, and likely without bodily harm to themself be preferential to the possibility of a violent and bloody physical beating with odds likely not in the victim’s favor?
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Are you replying to the following?
In every normal country this couldn’t happen because that guy wouldn’t have a gun in the first place.
Are you referring to a shooting in self-defence by a law-abiding gun owner? If so, then yes, if said law-abiding citizen didn’t have a gun, then, by modus tollens, they wouldn’t be able to use a gun in self-defence.
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In every other country if three people decide it’d be funny to beat you to death, you actually have zero you can do about it.
You take your robbery and beating, stabbing or slashing, accept the Belfast smile when they decide to give you one, and hope they stop while you’re still able to survive.
What are the homicide rates in the US compared to those countries?
What’s the ratio of random attackers to friends and family getting killed?
Why are you burying yourself in macho fantasies?
I have no macho fantasies. More randos could beat me to death with their hands than the ones who cannot. You may have a bit of martial arts training and fantasies of obliterating some muggers with your hands but I have no such illusions. I’ve been the victim of crimes like this and consider myself lucky as I was utterly helpless at the time and survived. So fuck off with that “just run away or fight” nonsense you believe from watching too many movies where good guys always take damage differently from bad guys.
Read it again.
Read what? You said I’m buried in macho fantasies.
My owning guns has no bearing on domestic violence happening in a different household.
You know yourself and know you are the kind of person who might use a gun on your own family. I know myself and have no such violent tendencies. The broader statistics may be relevant to the question of whether you disarm everyone wholesale, but are irrelevant to one individual’s personal decision whether or not they will defend their own lives given existing legal constraints.
This is 10/10 mental gymnastics, gold medal
Your arguments are so informative and full of insight, you should publish to a journal.
Ah yes all those stabbing and knife deaths in European countries like people don’t get stabbed more in the us…
You realize these things still happen a lot more in america right?
I don’t dispute that.
Only question is: what is your plan for when 3 dudes surround you and the first one who is much larger than you makes every signal that he’s about to dominate you?
Who is out to get you bro, what did you do
You clearly grew up more privileged than me, and lived a more sheltered experience, if you truly don’t know that criminals work in groups.
Bored teens with no futures do exceptionally dumb shit, like attack people for fun. They pick the weakest person they see, and in NYC every year there are at least one or two stories where the attacks turn into homicides.
Mate my brother was a drug dealer, half my friends growing up were in gangs, and at no point did I wish I had a gun or any other weapon except in sad moments as a power fantasy.
In every other country if three people decide it’d be funny to beat you to death, you actually have zero you can do about it.
I don’t know if you mean that one would lack the means, or that they are simply prohibited by law to defend themself, but, in either case, it is false in that there do exist countries in which one can defend themself, or defend themself and carry the means to defend themeself. For example, let’s look at Canada (do not interpret this as legal advice):
34 (1) A person is not guilty of an offence if
(a) they believe on reasonable grounds that force is being used against them or another person or that a threat of force is being made against them or another person;
(b) the act that constitutes the offence is committed for the purpose of defending or protecting themselves or the other person from that use or threat of force; and
(c) the act committed is reasonable in the circumstances.
So we can see that one is allowed to defend themself. Things do get a little more trick when we are talking about the means to defend oneself. Canada’s criminal code defines a “weapon”, as follows:
weapon means any thing used, designed to be used or intended for use
(a) in causing death or injury to any person, or
(b) for the purpose of threatening or intimidating any person
and then further states
88 (1) Every person commits an offence who carries or possesses a weapon, an imitation of a weapon, a prohibited device or any ammunition or prohibited ammunition for a purpose dangerous to the public peace or for the purpose of committing an offence.
Punishment
(2) Every person who commits an offence under subsection (1)
(a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years; or
(b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.
However, there are some loopholes in this. As long as one states that they are not carrying an item with the purpose of causing harm to another, and that such reasoning could be reasonably justified, given the context, one could, for example, carry a knife. Carrying a firearm, however, is significantly more complicated, and difficult.
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I’m really surprised the DA took this to trial. I can’t imagine a jury in the US that would have returned a conviction.
Are you being sarcastic? It’s hard to tell over text.
Nope, not sarcasm. I legit think the DA should have worked harder for a plea and saved the time, money, and embarrassment of a trial.
Well that’s called cognitive dissonance. You can believe it. It happened. It only seems unbelievable because you don’t really know what the law is.
If you did, you’d know why the person was arrested, prosecuted, and why the case made it all the way to a jury without being dismissed along the way such as at a probable cause hearing or on a motion for directed verdict.
Personally I don’t care what the law says. I’m happy the YouTuber got shot and I am happy the shooter went free.
He’s still needing to fight the charge for shooting into an occupied dwelling - judge is hearing arguments in October. He’s also been in police custody since the incident 6 months ago. I hope he wins though. I think the gun was too far, but the increase in lethality in any situation where someone has a gun is well known and documented, and comes down to a policy issue rather than his own personal failing imo.
Really he had the right to salf defense but not use a gun in crowned building, what about standing his ground.
This is a perfect example of gun laws not making common sense. You can have your shooting ruled justified and still get a felony on the fact of where it happened. Like you had a choice.
law only have to make sense to lawyer and judges not people
The vast majority of people are neither lawyers nor judges.
I think the people the laws apply to should be able to make sense of those laws or the laws are no good.
Agree
Absolutely not. If laws don’t make sense then they are inherently unjust.
I agree that that they should, not that they do
Yeah man, whatever happened to pepper spray? This seems more like a pepper spray kind of response.
I’m not trying to make a strawman argument with this comment, I would simply like to state the misfortune that some countries prohibit the use of pepper spray for self-defence. Canada is one such example that is known to me.
tshLz68OTxAkqdrN0fsu2PS0B3WTZAEQxH9bUUpQeu0M/piF3foJbme1ziay5+3XkCIyRUqO6fornlpkXdp0QK9/xIIy7Z/vf+NOSZ/NC+hrZsvmplMjNkhRJ3U2kzKEMINpt6NDvnsNrxsHMVO+V/wJLsA2a7sV/WZcrtHaxQmk+n6dATEK1NzGx5Dcl96wsiSTHLI7Y5cXtp7VvzZ4xQ6Vefg1CDf44lQnQcKUWcdY9DeTCksEUzQba0ee/UCO1HaoPhzlYnH4wNLayMOZHjg+l5uRSDFeEzEK8+ElNAQaP9rCG/g/RpvuPrwAkM2I6cCCQkudj1FdGEPSgSzYmQ==If the safety we pay for, and the justice we expect isn’t provided sufficiently by the state, I think it’s sensible to ignore prohibitions of this nature. I don’t personally view them as a misfortune - freedom is a practice.
I think it’s sensible to ignore prohibitions of this nature
While sensible, I would argue that it is ill-advised (depending on context). One would instead be better suited to protest for this right, or to build grassroots support with the hope of democratically achieving it.
freedom is a practice.
I do strongly agree with this statement; however, the rule of law must be respected unless one is absolutely certain that there is no other choice. I think the declaration of independence puts it succinctly:
[…] Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government […] Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. […]
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Sure, but it takes energy to protest & there are only so many hours in a day. If you’re fighting for something righteous, alright, maybe it’s worth it. But all that work for something that sits on the shelf at cabelas that anybody can buy? Nah.
the rule of law must be respected unless one is absolutely certain that there is no other choice
I disagree with this. There are laws that are unfair, discriminatory, puritanical, fruits of political gamesmanship, legislative overreach, arbitrary coincidences of time & place, restrictive on activities that harm no one, etc. I don’t think people oppressed by those laws should have to bear the burden of crusading against them. I don’t think disobedience needs to have strings attached.
Sure, but it takes energy to protest & there are only so many hours in a day.
Freedom is accomplished through practice 😉.
If you’re fighting for something righteous, alright, maybe it’s worth it.
You don’t think that fighting for one’s freedom is righteous?
But all that work for something that sits on the shelf at cabelas that anybody can buy? Nah.
What do you mean? I don’t understand how this statement ties in with what you were previously talking about.
I disagree with this. There are laws that are unfair, discriminatory, puritanical, fruits of political gamesmanship, legislative overreach, arbitrary coincidences of time & place, restrictive on activities that harm no one, etc.
I would argue that malicious compliance would be one’s best form of resistance in the case where one is not subject to absolute despotism. There is also something called “Jury Nullification” which can be a boon for making these sorts of changes.
I don’t think disobedience needs to have strings attached.
If disobedience carried no risk, then we would not live in a civil society.
I don’t like this behavior either. But the answer isn’t to start shooting. America is gross.
This happened in Dulles–just west of Washington, D.C.–not Dallas, TX.
Well Oops, this my bad. I guess its just america.
Correct, people shouldn’t go around shooting people that they don’t like, but that isn’t what happened here – Alan Colie was acting in self-defence. That is, of course, unless you are of the opinion that people shouldn’t be allowed to use firearms in self-defence.
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Someone walking up to you us bad, but it isn’t a credible threat to your life. On the one hand, youtube should be held liable for incentuvizing this behavior, even if it means repealling section 250. On the other hand, you shouldn’t start a shootout at Walmart over a tik tok. All of America will become a battlefield.
Someone walking up to you us bad, but it isn’t a credible threat to your life.
It entirely depends on context.
youtube should be held liable for incentuvizing this behavior
For one, YouTube isn’t directly incentivizing it. The existence of money, and social fame are the main incentivizing factors. YouTube simply provides the platform. Holding YouTube accountable for this would carry enormous ramifications for the rest of the internet.
even if it means repealling section 250
Do you mean Section 230…?
On the other hand, you shouldn’t start a shootout at Walmart over a tik tok.
That is a rather reductive statement – you are ignoring crucial contextual information. The victim assessed that, given the situation, there was a credible threat to his safety, and acted accordingly.
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Someone walking up to you us bad, but it isn’t a credible threat to your life. On the one hand, youtube should be held liable for incentuvizing this behavior, even if it means repealling section 250. On the other hand, you shouldn’t start a shootout at Walmart over a tik tok. All of America will become a battlefield.
That’s incredibly reductive.
Sure defending oneself with firearms may be appropriate in some circumstances, simply walking away might be appropriate in other circumstances.
Some would argue the latter was more appropriate in this circumstance, and others would argue the former, but we can probably both agree there would be more people arguing the former in the US than in most other countries.
Have you seen the video? The shooter getting “pranked” had both hands occupied carrying a paper bag and was being followed and harassed for over 10 seconds while repeatedly telling the prankster to stop.
It does seem like an overreaction to shoot immediately instead of trying to threaten first but I’m not sure.
I would’ve fully sided with the shooter if they’re weren’t in a mall with other people around and probably security right around the corner, because then he would’ve been much more at risk if he doesn’t shoot and the prankster tries to rob him or w/e.
Hm, one must be careful with such lines of thinking. Self-defense should be protected, and upheld based on principle, and not simply because it was used against someone who may socially detestable.
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He’s still going to prison for discharging a firearm apparently.
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.”
What was the phrase? That’s kinda important. “Have a nice day” and “I’m going to skullfuck you” are not equally threatening.
Cook testified in court Wednesday, saying he was playing a Google Translate prank on Colie where he would play “goofy woods.” Colie’s defense lawyer later said Cook was playing the phrase “hey dipsh**, stop thinking about my sparkle.”
Also
Colie said despite backing away, yelling “stop” several times, threatening to call police and pushing the phone back, Cook refused to answer him and kept moving forward.
“In my mind, I registered that he was a threat to me, and he was going to harm me,” Colie told the jury. “I saw his left hand down in his left pocket. I didn’t know if he was concealing a weapon. For the sake of my safety, I took out the gun from my right pocket and I shot him in the stomach. At that time, I was fearful that my life was in danger.”
Thanks for the links. If what he says is true, it seems like Colie handled himself responsibly, and didn’t use the situation as an excuse for excessive force. There are cops who could learn from his example.
Also found this pic, assuming it’s from the video of their prank. That looks pretty threatening to me.
It was, “Hey dips, quit thinking about my twinkle” or something along those lines. A nonsense phrase intentionally chosen to be confusing.
It was Google translate reading out “Hey dipshit, stop thinking about my twinkle" in English then again in Spanish. It’s mostly harmless and just confusing, but Cook following after Colie’s definitely what forced the situation to escalate, as he held the phone uncomfortably close to Colie’s ear.
People keep saying that’s phrase is harmless. To me that sounds like the type of confused and stupid thing Maga people would yell while committing a hate crime. That combined with two people not taking no for an answer while advancing on you? It sounds like a threat.
When I was living in Virginia I was in a pretty rural area so my view of Virginia might be colored. I found it to be a really red state ( at leadt the part I wan in, not sure about the part this took place in) and yelling at someone there for thinking about your twinkle sounds like a prelude to bigoted violence to me.
I agree. this is exactly the kind of behavior I got before getting the shit beaten out of me in school in the 80s/90s for not covering up my sexuality well enough (bi), nearly lost a thumb in one incident, nearly lost consciousness from being choked in another.
Took me 20 years to work out my trauma and internalized homophobia — and still can’t watch TV shows that feature high school bullying.
This would trigger me (no pun intended) pretty hard.
100% this whole thing screams hate crime, and on top of that delivery drivers are statistically one of the more dangerous jobs out there (delivery drivers are much more likely to be shot than cops).
Where this happened is quite urban. It’s suburbia surrounded by tech companies and data centers in NoVA.
Piece of shit is lucky to be alive. Hope he learned from this, but I doubt it, they never do.
I don’t understand how you can rightfully find him not guilty by self defense and then still have him criminally liable for firing a gun in a mall.
He didn’t, he was making fun of the whole thing in an interview and said he’d continue doing his malicious pranks all the same.
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If he didn’t care, why did he take the dude to court? Being shot was part of God’s plan, was it not?
On one hand, this can be seen as a signal to allow shooting shitty people, which is bad for a plethora of reasons. On the other hand, shitty people.
I guess there’s a reason Just For Laughs Gags is filmed in Canada.
Paranoia and heavy armament don’t seem to go well together.
Cook’s lack of respect for people and his total disregard of the consequences of his actions is what caused this situation, not paranoia and heavy armament.
I don’t have any sympathy for Cook, nor do i think it’s a bad verdict, but shooting someone is a pretty extreme response to having a phone held near your face/ear for 20 seconds.
It’s a losing battle trying to inject reasonable responses to situations here. Running away is apparently something that is no longer allowed. People somehow think going for violence is always the correct and immediate response to something like this. This place is no better than Reddit for that, there are some bloodthirsty motherfuckers itching to tell someone who is in charge via the point of a gun.
You don’t have a monopoly on reasonableness. Twelve jurors, not Redditors, agreed that the YouTuber was behaving aggressively, and violence is a common response to aggression.
And the YouTuber’s entire shtick is to make people think they might be in danger, by not letting them back away. Because that’s how fights commonly start. If he did the same routine ten feet away from his victims, the whole shtick would fail.
violence is a common response to aggression
And that’s the thing about US legal law: the active support for violence in response to aggression.
Most European countries have a clear legal principle of not allowing violence in response to aggression.
Most European countries allow the use of force in self defense.
Proportional force.
For example:
- Shooting someone, for telling you to given them your wallet, is NOT proportional.
- Stabbing someone to death, for trying to mug you at knifepoint, IS proportional.
- Stabbing them and dismembering the body afterwards, is NOT proportional.
The main difference, is most European countries have a (mostly) functional police force you can expect to help you deal properly in most conflict situations.
Still, this case “could” be considered proportional if the guy saw the prankster and his friends as potentially assaulting him as a group.
Within a narrowly defined scope, yes. Pretty sure that with how the case is described here that he would be convicted in a lot of European countries for overstepping the amount of force he’s allowed to use in self defense.
12 jurors agreed that they couldn’t agree on a verdict and the judge told them that wasn’t an option so they came back with a not guilty verdict.
Yes, they agreed they couldn’t agree and then they agreed they could agree. And the verdict they could agree on was not guilty.
You’re reading into that the wrong way. There was one incompatible charge about firing indoors. Somehow you can be guilty of that without being guilty for shooting someone? That’s almost definitely what the hangup was about and the judge is going to hear arguments for it next month even though it was the only charge they found him guilty for.
And that result proves that society is too quick to use a gun by deeming potential lethal force so acceptable.
Or maybe it proves that society has deemed intentionally menacing bystanders, particularly for money, to be completely unacceptable.
Also Just for Laughs mostly uses people who are already in on the joke, which helps.
This is one of the more polite takes that ignores the victim’s reasonable expectation he was about to get mugged or something. But it’s no less wrong.
If you stuck a toy gun in people’s faces, information revealed afterward will not change those people’s experience of a life-or-death threat, in that moment. Same deal for clown-with-a-knife bullshit. Same deal for getting in stranger’s faces. The degrees matter - and we get further from an “I might die here” response being justifiable and obvious. But presumably the Canadians aren’t committing assault for the sake of television.
Same deal for getting in stranger’s faces. The degrees matter - and we get further from an “I might die here” response being justifiable and obvious.
Yes, we’re already so far away from it that’s it’s not in sight at this point.
Stop trolling in every subthread. You act like Colie walked up and shot this guy out of nowhere - when he was confronted, followed, and surrounded.
As an observer from the future, you know he wasn’t in physical danger.
He did not.
He had every reason to anticipate harm.
The entire interaction from the start til when he was shot lasted 20 seconds, in broad daylight, inside a public mall.
That is not being followed and surrounded in a way where you think you’re about to be killed in any mind but the most deluded and paranoid.
This asshole’s lawyer did a better job than you and still couldn’t convince anyone. Take a hint.
As can be seen by the comment section I’m well aware I’m not going to convince a bunch of paranoid Americans that their way of life is flawed.
That doesn’t mean I’m not going to call you on your dumb bullshit.
Have you ever had someone punch you in the face?
Hmmm
clickbait title
I tend to think of “clickbait” as intentionally misleading. This isn’t.
It’s such an unusual situation that it’s hard to write a short, accurate headline that doesn’t sound a bit sensationalistic.
I wanted to say it was a youtube “prankster”, but rules of the community forbade me.
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What a sinful murderous culture
What a weird response.
No one was murdered. What “sins” were committed here? “Love your neighbor,” which gets violated everywhere every day. We live in a stupid, decadent, vapid capitalist culture. A worker, making way less than he should so a company can call him an independent contractor, carries a gun so he doesn’t lose his little bit of money, and a twat making peoples lives miserable for money…capitalism is the common culprit. This isn’t “society” rotting. This is your economic system inflicting it’s dominating principles, coldly, on everyone.
In every other western country a teenage prank usually does not result in attempted murder.
Capitalism may make someone desperate enough to lash out, American gun insanity has evidently lead most of the people in this thread to think that lashing out by shooting someone with a fucking gun is a justifiable response to an annoying prank.
Man youre taking literally shooting someone way too lightly. Do you often shoot people with the expectation theyll be fine?
No, you shoot people because you believe they pose a legitimate threat to you. Cook was assaulted and defended himself.
This is a case of, “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”
It’s also important to note that the scumbag that was assaulting him is 6’5", so he’s automatically intimidating just by existing.
I like that addition at the end that just being tall warrants you being murdered.
They said that tall people are intimidating, which is absolutely true. As another 6’5" dude, I try to be careful how I walk up on somebody, because it is easy to accidentally scare the shit out of people.
Yup, I’m 6’3 and I have to do the same.
You could get shot for mildly scaring someone in america.
No one was murdered
Again, do you shoot people expecting them to be fine?
Again, nobody was murdered in this case. The facts of the case are what matter, not your hypothetical musings.
No, you shoot people to remove a threat to your life.
Guys he this person walked at me aggressively and I couldn’t tell if they’d kill me so I shot them. Bless merica where life doesn’t mean jack shit.
You can get justifiably shot in self-defense for assaulting a person, yes. Because that’s what happened here.
Not justifiable in a country unless the country is a place that’s insane
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
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.
Don’t care what the legal definition is
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.
Well, the good thing is that the judge and jury weren’t wrong like you are.
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?
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.
The extent to which you’re victim blaming here is beyond absurd.
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.
I’m not going to defend the shooting, but I think you’re taking the idea of being approached by two strangers (one of whom is behind you) way too lightly.
Without seeing the video it’s hard to say, but the situation sounds absolutely terrifying.
I added a link to the video in the post. Unfortunately the original was taken down, but I did have a cached version I could save and repost.
Have you never been approached by strangers before?
Yes, from behind like in this case. By a mugger.
Everyone who’s ever approached me in the manner of this “prank” has either attempted or done me harm. The dude didn’t know this was a prank. He told them several times to stop and they didn’t. His only safe bet was that the situation would continue to escalate.
“approached” - you seem to be performing Olympic-tier stretching to reduce this aggressive harassment and intimidation to “approached”.
This is incredibly disingenuous - it’s hard to take anything you say seriously through such. It’s also clear you aren’t actually here for any form of conversation, aren’t here to understand what happened as shown by video and conclude from that, and are instead here to just shill your anti-firearm point of view.
Beyond disappointing.
Not by someone who snuck up on me and played a recording in my ear while his friend watched.
Ah the phone is what makes this a situation that needs a corpse then
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A murderous society is as you described. Life isn’t valued. Delivery drivers feel they should be armed. Shooting kids because they annoyed you is permitted. Everybody is on edge. The sin is attempting to murder, not in defense and having the culture so rotting that there’s no guilt in it. Blame whatever you got to. It is what it is. Its a society that’s so far gone that life is devalued that this happens
