Tennessee Man Killed by CCWer After Robbery Prank
I've been seeing these videos where pranksters seemingly do all they can to get a reaction, usually on camera, of some unsuspecting person who just wanted to go about their day minding their own business. I try not to watch them personally because they're cringe-worthy.
These are usually turned into viral videos and each time I have ever seen one of these videos, on the news or otherwise, I think to myself: It just takes one. One day one of these fools is going to try and trick the wrong person and either get severely hurt or worse, dead.
The incident:
Well that day has sadly happened after a Tennessee man was shot and killed in a parking lot in Nashville after his prank turned horribly wrong. The man and a partner in crime reportedly walked up to a group of people with butcher knives to commit a prank robbery for his YouTube channel.
One of the people in the group was carrying a firearm and did not realize the situation was a prank.
The gun carrier took the threat seriously and opened fire. The prankster died.
The investigation is ongoing, but the gun carrier said that he thought the threat was serious and that he acted out of self-defense.
He now has to live his life knowing that he killed someone who didn't necessarily intend harm, even if the prankster was an idiot. And, the partner in crime may end up being charged with murder since he was an accessory and lived (though to be honest I'm not even sure if he was shot).
I know our audience on this website isn't the type to commit these types of pranks, but it is my hope that you help us share this information so someone who does can help save their own life.
The rest of this article describes all that is wrong with these pranks and is targeted to the people who do them.
Pranking people is stupid:
I've been saying it since at least that clown craze that took place a few years back when those people dressed in clown costumes and approached people in public. If you play these pranks on people it can be dangerous for any of the people involved.
Let's forget for a second that you might be shot or have your rear end beat to a bloody pulp by targeting the wrong person. Let's flip the script and take a look at the other people involved.
YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEIR LIFE IS LIKE!
As a prankster, how do you know if that person has a heart condition or is on the verge of a heart attack? How do you know that person doesn't suffer from a severe mental disorder that they're trying to overcome and you just set them back months or years in their recovery because you're trying to get views and likes? How do you know if that person is about to have a nervous breakdown and you're the one to push them over the cliff?
The truth of the matter is that you have no idea what people have going on and being the person to start a chain reaction isn't cool. Sure, you might be cool to your followers for pulling off an epic prank that may go viral. But to the person's life you may ruin, you're not cool.
To them, you suck.
Don't suck, and don't be like the idiot who thought it would be a good idea to conduct a prank robbery with butcher knifes. You just never know who you're pranking, what they're going through, or what they're willing to do to live.
Rant over.
Back to the concealed carriers —
Sign up for a program like CCW Safe to keep you out of jail if you ever need to defend your life with your gun.
Leave your thoughts on this in the comments below.
spot on (as usual)
It was bound to happen sooner or later !! Now the CCW individual has to deal with his decision to draw his weapon, he will most likely be stripped of his permit, weapon(s) and require therapy.
I think not. He has a right to protect himself and others if there is a threat to his or their lives. Knives kill, response is kill before you are killed. It’s called self defense. The law is on his side, but the action he took will be in his mind forever.
Without even having been in that situation I can’t say for sure, but I’m sitting here having a rough time thinking I’d be scarred for life if I were the shooter in this case. The guy had every right to do what he did. If someone thinks they can’t live with the consequences of shooting someone in legitimate self-defense, why carry a gun in the first place?
With the news full of stories about how many millions of new gun owners there are in the U.S., pulling a prank like this isn’t real bright, but as I’ve said many times recently, you just can’t fix STUPID!
Play stupid games……..
Was it really a game or robbery gone bad?
Pics and details http://www.Tennessean.com
Never let your guard down.
Prank that leaves one dead and another having to live with the idea that they killed that person? Yeah, somehow, that just doesn’t sound funny to me. To the shooter, I am sorry you were put into the position where you felt compelled to take someone’s life, I hope you can wrap your mind around the fact that it is not your fault. The the rest of the idiots out there that think pranks are “funny”…..take a hint. They are NOT funny.
When republicans were eating diner outside in DC and antifa shot fireworks at them, I thought they could not do that in this part of Texas without getting shot.
Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.
You guys, I live in Nashville; it was not a prank but a robbery gone bad.
The perp was killed and the fast talking copartner thug had plenty of time to come up with a kockamania story as an alibi.
We have had a deluge of crime coming from these kind of young kids. When you see the pic of the so called duo you can connect the dots
( by the way his momma says he was a good boy)
The prankster was obviously an idiot. He paid for his idiocy with his life. That is a very unfortunate situation. He should have never placed himself, his “friend” or the people they tried to rob (even if it was a “prank”… the whole idea of these idiots is to make the robbery as authentic as possible, so it will be perceived as a robbery by the victims), in that situation. The prankster and his accomplice were carrying deadly weapons… weapons capable of inflicting serious bodily injury or death. They behaved in a way which led the victims to believe that they were under the threat of deadly force, fearing for their lives. One of the victims was apparently presented with an opportunity to defend his life and those of his companions by acting to stop the threat and he did. In this, he (generic) did nothing wrong. He did nothing that he should be ashamed of. It was not his fault that the aggressors, wielding deadly weapons, “intended” all this as a twisted “joke” or prank. Reading minds is not a requirement for self-defense. The best anyone can do is collect the information available and make a decision. No one can determine “intent”, The best that one can do is identify the behaviors and infer intent. If someone wielding a knife large enough to cause grievous bodily harm or death approaches a group demanding that they hand over their money or possessions, it is logical to infer that the intent of that person is to rob you and possibly harm you, given the tendency for wanton violence nowadays. Even before the perpetrators voice a demand for money or goods, their mere presence, attitude, movement and weapons allow for a logical inference of intent to harm. So, with all due respect, he didn’t “kill someone who didn’t necessarily intend harm” because he had absolutely no way of knowing that at the moment he pulled the trigger. He killed someone whose behavior and weapon indicated that he DID intend harm. As such, the perpetrator’s idiocy should not be a weight on his conscience.
I don’t disagree with you. My point with that statement was just that the mind can play tricks on a person after an incident now that he has more facts. So he may question if he did the right thing or not. He should not question if he did the right thing because he acted on the facts he had at the time.
Thanks for the comment,
Josh
It is horrifying to place myself in that situation, knowing only what he knew at the time, I would have done likewise. Hopefully this going viral will make future would-be pranksters think twice.
Some info missing. Did the prankster try to run away after commands from the CC person, were there any commands or just shots fired? Hopefully the CC person did everything right.
All I can ever do is report on the information I have at the time of writing.
Assuming he’s not in one of the communist states, the concealed carrier certainly would have the right to protect himself and others from a knife attack. I’m surprised this hasn’t happened more often. Pranksters need to realize the danger they put themselves in and consider the possibility of having a very bad day.
I don’t know how a “pretend robbery” with butcher knives can even be considered a prank. It’s not even stupid. On face value, I don’t see how it can’t be considered a criminal action regardless of intent. I don’t blame the guy for shooting at all. I don’t know what I would have done, we can never know really until it happens to us. By the way, great commentary about how these “pranks” can affect people negatively in other ways.
I think the deceased is a good candidate for a Darwin Award.
No one on their right mind would do that, for views and risk their lives
I agree with Thomas Smith. The dead prankster gets a First place Darwin Award! Anyone that stupid or perhaps brain-dead, deserves what he received! If I happened to be in that situation, with any of my friends, I wouldn’t hesitate to fire. As a Vet, it was either “kill or be killed!”