KENOSHA, Wis.: Prosecutors have charged a Wisconsin man with supplying the gun an Illinois teen used to kill two people during a protest over police brutality in August.
Online court records show prosecutors in Kenosha charged 19-year-old Dominick Black on Nov. 3 with two felony counts of supplying a dangerous weapon to a minor causing death. Black could face up to 25 years in prison if convicted on both counts.
Black made his initial court appearance Monday. Court Commissioner Loren Keating set his bail at $2,500 cash and scheduled a preliminary hearing for Nov. 19. Black’s attorney, Robert Keller, didn’t immediately return a message left at his office after the court appearance.
The Kenosha News reported that a criminal complaint alleges Black asked his friend, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, of Antioch, Illinois, to help him guard businesses in Kenosha from protesters the night of Aug. 25. Demonstrators converged on the city for several nights after a white police officer shot Jacob Blake, who is Black, in the back seven times during a domestic dispute. The shooting left Blake paralyzed from the waist down.
Black and Rittenhouse went to Black’s stepfather’s house to get an assault-style rifle that Rittenhouse could use that night, the complaint said. Wisconsin law prohibits minors from carrying or possessing firearms unless they’re hunting.
The complaint alleges that Rittenhouse used the rifle to fatally shoot Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and wound a third man, Gaige Grosskreutz. Rittenhouse has been charged with multiple counts, including intentional homicide and illegally possessing a gun. His attorneys contend he was acting in self-defense. The case has been a rallying point for conservatives upset with property destruction during protests across the country this year.
Police first met Black at the Rittenhouse family’s apartment in Antioch, where he told them he had the rifle that Rittenhouse used in the trunk of his car and that he’d given Rittenhouse the weapon. Police recovered the rifle as well as another rifle Black carried during the protest from the car.
According to Antioch police reports, Black’s stepfather said Black bought the gun for Rittenhouse in Ladysmith, Wisconsin, using Rittenhouse’s money but put the gun in his own name.
Black told police that when they went to his stepfather’s house he was concerned about Rittenhouse having the gun because he wasn’t 18, but if he told Rittenhouse he couldn’t have it Rittenhouse would have thrown a fit, the reports said.
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