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Tanner Cook landed in the hospital with gunshot wounds to his stomach and liver after he thrice thrust a camera in the face of 31-year-old Alan Colie last weekend at Dulles Town Center, his dad, Jeramy Cook tells Daily Voice.
The elder Cook says his son — who runs Classified Goons on YouTube — didn't intend any harm.
"He’s a nice, sweet kid and he does videos that are pranks," the father said, "but he’s not hurting anyone physically. He’s trying to get a reaction and build a following and have fun."
Making people feel disturbed is "exactly what makes for good content that everyone wants to watch," Cook tells Daily Voice.
While Cook doesn't feel Tanner crossed any lines, some of his haters thinks he did.
"Think it’s time to start staging your pranks instead of harassing strangers for cheap views," one person commented on Tanner's Instagram page.
"Sometimes when you play stupid games you win stupid prizes," another said.
When asked if the incident made Tanner rethink his pranks, his father said:
"It can't not make him rethink any of it," Cook said. "He will have a number of weeks and months to ponder those things. He's a 21-year-old young man and doesn't have life's answers all sorted out."
Cook tells Daily Voice he forgives Colie, and hopes Tanner stops pranking people or finds a way to do it in a more controlled setting with less variables for injury.
"The lesson is too many people are ran by their emotions right now," Cook said, "and the climate is very toxic resulting in a lot of people being very dangerous right now and ready to tip over."
Colie was charged with aggravated malicious wounding; use of a firearm in the commission of a felony; and discharging a firearm within a building. It was not immediately clear if he had a permit to carry.
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