YouTube prankster Tanner Cook’s stunt fails, gets shot by intended target

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A YouTube prankster’s attempt to pull a fast one at a Virginia mall literally backfired after the intended target got mad and shot him in the stomach.

“I was playing a prank, a simple practical joke, and this guy didn’t take it very well and shot me,” Tanner Cook, 21, told WUSA9 from his hospital bed in the intensive care unit.

Cook runs the YouTube channel Classified Goons, which features him performing “Jackass”-style pranks on unsuspecting people.

Some of these harebrained gags have included pretending to urinate in stores and asking strangers to play “naked Twister.”

Authorities didn’t specify the nature of the youngster’s latest stunt, which he filmed with friends near a Cheesecake Factory at the Dulles Town Center in Dulles.

However, the prank did not sit well with the intended target, Leesburg’s Alan Collie, 31, who whipped out a semi-automatic pistol and shot the YouTuber, striking him in the stomach and liver.

“They were making a video at the mall and trying to have fun with people and this guy wasn’t having fun,” Tanner’s father Jeramy Cook described. “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.”

The two allegedly did not know each other prior to the incident, per a statement by the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office.

The shooting reportedly caused panic at the mall, which just reopened Monday after being shuttered for the previous day.

The actual incident wasn’t caught on camera. However, footage filmed by Instagram user @thisismyu5ername showed Colie being arrested in the aftermath of the act.

Meanwhile, one of Cook’s friends also captured footage of the man pulling the gun, which is now being used as evidence against the suspect.

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