BLACK RIVER FALLS, Wis. — Jurors have found a small-town police chief not guilty of attempted murder after he allegedly tried to shoot a man he mistook for a violent criminal.

The 12-person panel acquitted Matthew Hoskins, 35, of attempted murder and two counts of reckless endangerment after deliberating for about two hours Thursday.

Hoskins, who faced up to 95 years in prison if convicted, wept after Judge John Damon read the jury's decision, and the gallery erupted in applause.

The charges stemmed from a Sept. 27, 2003, incident in which Hoskins confronted a neighbor he thought was armed and dangerous.

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But the police chief had misinterpreted John Ellingson's attempt to scare away teenage pranksters coming to toilet-paper his house by rigging his yard with noisemakers that sounded like gunfire.

When Ellingson's booby traps went off and sent the teens screaming down the street, Hoskins grabbed his girlfriend's handgun and went to investigate.

During closing arguments, prosecutor Barbara Oswald said Hoskins mistook Ellingson's 17-year-old daughter Melissa as a criminal, and overreacted when he tried to subdue her in the street.

That mistake, she said, spurred a scuffle that led to three shots being fired.

"[Ellingson] reasonably believed that [Hoskins] was a raging lunatic," Oswald said. "That provoked the attack from Mr. Ellingson."

Defense attorney John Matousek, however, told jurors that Ellingson provoked the whole incident by behaving irresponsibly.

"Ellingson provoked excitement. He provoked the danger," Matousek said. "What matters is that it was real to [Hoskins]. He hears gunshots and screams and panic and a possible crime."

Ellingson testified that after the two men scuffled, Hoskins stepped back and pointed a .40 caliber Glock semiautomatic handgun at his chest and pulled the trigger. Prosecutors claim the gun "dry-fired."

Hoskins admitted to leveling the weapon at Ellingson, but denied pulling the trigger.

A ballistics expert for the prosecution testified that after inspecting the gun, he could not rule out that a "dry-fire" occurred.

But the defense's final witness, firearms expert Robert Willis, testified Thursday that it would have been virtually impossible for a "dry-fire" to occur.