Minnesota Vikings cornerback Chris Cook was found not guilty of pulling a gun on a neighbor in Lynchburg, Va.
General District Court Judge Edwin Burnette issued the ruling Friday after a 2-hour bench trial. Cook was accused of a misdemeanor count of brandishing a firearm.
"I was never concerned," Cook told the *Star Tribune* in a telephone interview. "I had good witnesses. All of our stories matched each other. They decided they were basically trying to string this story together and just make me look bad. ... I'm just happy to get it over with."
Court records show the neighbor, Omar D. Goode, accused Cook of brandishing a .40-caliber, chrome-plated handgun on March 12 near the home of Cook's mother. The prosecutor, Robert Dean, said several witnesses agreed that an argument had occurred between the two men, but Cook denied pulling a gun and the judge concluded there was insufficient evidence to find the player guilty of the accusation.
Cook told the Star Tribune that he has a concealed-weapon license but didn't pull a gun on Goode.
"It definitely will make me smarter about how I react to other people and what they say to me or what they try and do to me," said Cook, whom the Vikings drafted in the second round last year. "It just makes me more cautious about what I say or how I react to other people."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
