2 men arrested for video prank

BOCA RATON, Fla. (WSVN) -- Two men were taken into police custody after a video prank went wrong.

A video camera was rolling nearby as Andre Brown was approached by a man wearing a black suit, carrying a briefcase and talking on his cell phone.

The man in the suit was pretending to be a Russian hitman. "The man said, 'Run! In 60 seconds, it's gonna blow!' And I was like, 'What?' And he goes, 'It's a bomb!'" Brown said.

Brown can be seen running away from the man.

Jonathan Vanegas was behind the camera, and the "hitman" was Vitaly Zdorovetskiy. "All of a sudden, [the actor] said, 'Film! Film! Film!'" said Vanegas.

Zdorovetskiy told Brown he was on camera, and his reaction was less than pleasant. "You're trying to get a laugh!? I'm not a mother[expletive] you laugh at!" Brown exclaimed, as he chased Zdorovetskiy.

"He was literally foaming from the mouth," Vanegas said of Brown. "He's a war veteran, but if we knew that, we wouldn't have done it in the first place."

In the video, Vanegas asked Brown, "What are you doing, bro?"

Brown replied, "What am I doing? You brought a damn camera, and you tried to pull a prank on me! I'm already having a bad day, and you [expletive] come over here, and you made it worse! You better hope the cops get here quick!"

"OK! I said, 'Sorry!'" said Vanegas.

This is not the first prank the amateur filmmakers have pulled. Shortly after the Miami cannibal attack, they shot video of a zombie prank and uploaded it to YouTube. During that prank, someone pulled out a gun on the zombie actor. The clip has received 13 million hits.

Residents called the pranks childish and dangerous. "You can't joke about stuff like that," one man said.

Another man agreed. "I think it's a little immature," he said. "It was a joke, but I think it was a little too serious of a joke."

Boca Raton Police immediately arrested Vanegas at the scene. According to the police report, they quickly found Zdorovetskiy by going online and finding the YouTube link, which led them to Vanegas' partner-in-crime. "Making a threat of a bomb is a second-degree felony, so they were charged accordingly," said Sandra Boonenberg of Boca Raton Police.

Vanegas, however, said the prank was not meant to be taken seriously. "It's obviously a joke. Obviously, Boca PD can't take a joke," he said. "I think we [picked on the wrong guy], especially since it was his bad day."

Brown has since pressed charges. He said, "Something needs to be done."

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