By Chris O'Connell
Court TV
BLACK RIVER FALLS, Wis. — John Ellingson just wanted to scare away teenagers who were going to toilet-paper his house. Instead, prosecutors claim, he found himself in a life-and-death struggle with the local police chief. Matthew Hoskins, the police chief accused of trying to shoot Ellingson after misinterpreting Ellingson's effort to frighten a group of high school students in September 2003, went to trial before a Wisconsin jury in June 2005. Although no one was seriously injured during the incident, prosecutors charged Hoskins, 34, with attempted murder and two charges of second-degree reckless endangerment. If convicted on all counts, he faced up to 60 years in prison.
Police say Ellingson had set up trip-wires attached to noisemakers in an effort to scare the teens he expected would try to "TP," or toilet-paper, his home during homecoming week. When Ellingson saw several teens walking toward his house at about midnight, he jumped out of a hiding place, growled like a bear and set off the noisemakers. The youths ran screaming back to their cars, according to police. Ellingson told authorities he was walking back home with his daughter when he noticed a man in the road pointing a gun at him. When he asked the man, later identified as Hoskins, what he was doing, the pair got into a struggle. The criminal complaint said Hoskins fired at least two shots in the air to show the gun was real, and another shot was fired into the ground as the two men fought over the gun. Ellingson alleged that Hoskins pointed the gun at his chest and pulled the trigger — but the gun failed to fire. Law enforcement officers seized the .40-caliber weapon, which Hoskins said he had borrowed from his girlfriend, with whom he was staying when he noticed the vehicles parked on the road. Hoskins' defense attorney, John Matousek, contended his client did nothing wrong considering his perception of what was happening that night. "This isn't a 'TP' incident to Matt," Matousek said. "He thinks somebody's dead, or it's a [domestic violence incident]." "What he did was absolutely appropriate throughout the entire time," Matousek said. The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 
