Left: Kyle Rittenhouse watches a television monitor in court on Nov. 12, 2021. (Image © Mark Hertzberg/ZUMA Press Wire/Pool). Right: Dominick Black (Walworth County Sheriff”s Office).
A former associate of Kyle Rittenhouse has been apprehended on criminal charges in Wisconsin, following an incident in Illinois, according to police from both states.
Dominick Black, 24, a resident of Kenosha, faces charges including fleeing law enforcement, endangering public safety, and armed robbery, as reported by officials from Walworth County in Wisconsin and McHenry County in Illinois.
Currently, Black is held at Walworth County Jail for charges related to fleeing and endangerment. Additionally, he faces an armed robbery warrant from McHenry County, pending extradition, according to jail records.
The incident in question took place in the early hours of December 11 in the parking area of Harvard High School, located in Harvard, a small town midway between Chicago and Milwaukee, as stated by authorities.
Shortly before 2 a.m., reports of an armed robbery were filed, according to a press release from the Harvard Police Department.
“Victims were reportedly pursuing the suspect vehicle but lost track after it crossed into Wisconsin,” the release detailed. “The Walworth County Sheriff’s Office was alerted with the vehicle’s description.”
Black and two other men are alleged to have set up a meeting with jewelry sellers they met on Facebook Marketplace. But instead of buying the jewelry in question, the trio allegedly stole it while brandishing a gun.
The alleged victims, a man and woman out of Janesville, Wisconsin, say they agreed to a price before meeting up with the trio at the school parking lot on North Jefferson “to complete the transaction.”
“During the meeting, the offenders displayed a rifle and stole the jewelry before fleeing northbound,” the press release goes on.
Across the border, Walworth County deputies pursued the suspects into yet another municipality where Racine County Sheriff’s Office deputies used spike strips to disable their vehicle, police said.
“The three offenders were taken into custody,” the press release continues. “The stolen jewelry and the rifle were recovered inside.”
Along with Black, deputies arrested fellow Kenoshans Blair W. Stiles II, 19, and Solomon A. Bankhead, 25, Harvard police announced. They each face one count of armed robbery in Illinois.
Black previously found himself in legal jeopardy for providing Rittenhouse with the gun the latter man used to shoot and kill two people — and wound a third person — during a protest against police violence and anti-Black racism in August 2020.
Left to right: Kyle Rittenhouse and Dominick Black appear in booking photos from 2020 (Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department).
On the summer night in question, Rittenhouse killed Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber – and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz – with an AR-15 purchased by Black. Rosenbaum had been chasing Rittenhouse and lunged for a weapon when he was shot; Huber hit Rittenhouse with a skateboard before the shooting; Grosskreutz pulled out his own weapon. And, in the end, a Kenosha County jury credited the shooter’s controversial claims of self-defense.
Black, who testified on Rittenhouse’s behalf during his murder trial, initially faced two felony counts of intentionally giving a dangerous weapon to a person under the age of 18 causing death. Later, he took a plea deal on one count of contributing to the delinquency of a child because Rittenhouse was 17 years old at the time of the shootings.
In May 2022, Black was charged with one count each of attempting to flee or elude a police officer, and operating an unregistered motorcycle, as Law&Crime previously reported.
In February 2023, Black pleaded guilty to the fleeing count and was sentenced to three years of probation in Kenosha County.
The defendant is currently slated to appear in court on Aug. 4, 2027, in the armed robbery case, McHenry County court records show.
