Innocent dad shot by AR state police during Black Lives Matter protest finally wins in court

As an attorney himself, Don Cook knows the wheels of justice turn slowly. 

It’s been more than six years since notoriously messy Arkansas State Police trooper Ryan Wingo shot him in the face with a beanbag full of lead pellets, shattering Cook’s jaw and knocking out teeth. The father of an autistic son worried about how his child might fare in an interaction with law enforcement, Cook had gone to the Arkansas Capitol to protest police violence during a Black Lives Matter upswelling following the murder of George Floyd at the knee of a Minneapolis police officer.

Cook spent three days in the hospital, endured surgery, and walked away with a titanium jaw, some prosthetic teeth and permanent hearing damage. It wasn’t until after he petitioned the state claims commission to cover his medical bills that – surprise! – the Arkansas State Police moved to charge him with failing to comply with an order to disperse. 

It was a misdemeanor offense for which Cook got the treatment one might expect for a drug kingpin or violent domestic abuser. More than a year after Cook was shot, on the morning of July 23, 2021, two Arkansas troopers showed up at his house to arrest him. They then perp-walked Cook down the street in bare feet and pajamas, to the horror of his neighbors, of which this writer is one. I remember wondering what in the world my kind and frumpy neighbor, a father of three who wore goofy tennis shoes and routinely invited everyone on the street over for barbecues, could possibly be on the hook for.

Six years on, we can say definitively that the answer is nothing. Not only have any and all charges against Cook been dropped, but in the very early hours of Saturday, after a weeklong federal trial, a jury cemented the obvious good guy/bad guy narrative, finding in Cook’s favor in a lawsuit contending the Arkansas State Police used excessive force on the night of June 1, 2020. 

Today’s verdict comes on a second try. Cook’s first attempt in his federal civil rights trial against gunman Trooper Wingo and the ASP ended in a hung jury in October 2025. 

Specifics on the wee-hours verdict are hard to nail down on a weekend morning, but attorney Mike Laux dashed off a quick email laying out the high points: “The case was retried before Chief Judge Kristine G. Baker last week and early this morning, at 12:30 am, the jury returned a verdict of approximately $900K in favor of Plaintiff, Don Cook.”

Cook has since fled our shared street, seeking peace and safety by relocating many states away.

The trooper who shot Cook in the face seemingly remains on the state payroll. The Arkansas State Police did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.