A YouTuber named Timothy Wilks has been shot dead after taking part in a robbery prank for a video he was hoping would go viral.
Police were told by witnesses that the 20-year-old and a friend of his had approached some people outside a family trampoline park in Nashville, with large knives in their hands.
The YouTuber was then shot by a 23-year-old, who told officers he did not know it had been a “prank” and was simply defending himself.
Timothy’s friend told police the “prank” had been for a YouTube project.
No arrests were made following the shooting.
A number of families had been inside the Urban Air trampoline and adventure park, at the time of the incident, 21:20, WKRN reported.
Robbery prank videos aren’t a new thing on YouTube, and the “pranksters” often carry fake weapons, balaclavas, and use escape vehicles.
Some of them are seen millions of times, even though most of them are entirely fake, with pretty much everyone involved being aware of the joke.
Thankfully, a couple of years ago, YouTube brought out new rules banning dangerous pranks.
Those include “pranks that lead victims to fear imminent serious physical danger or that create serious emotional distress in minors”.
Weapon threats and fake robberies have been listed as offenses that would result in the video being deleted.
The special rules were created after several incidents took place in the past.
Back in 2015, YouTube refused to take down a video in which a man named Sam Pepper tricked someone into thinking his friend had been gunned down and died as a result.
However, in 2017, another prank by two bloggers ended fatally, when 19-year-old Monalisa Perez, shot her boyfriend, Pedro Ruiz, through a thick book, which he thought would stop the bullet from passing through to his body.
The girl was given a sentence of 6 months in March 2018 for the shooting.
10 months later, the tech giant banned dangerous pranks altogether.
See WKRN’s report on the story by clicking below.
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