Friend Details Why He Let Rittenhouse Take Gun Used In Shooting

LAKE COUNTY, IL — Fears over Kyle Rittenhouse “throwing a fit” prevented a 19-year-old Wisconsin man from speaking up when his friend took a rifle from his dad’s house before the two headed to downtown Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August.

Rittenhouse has since been charged with first-degree intentional homicide for accusations he used the gun in the Aug. 26 shootings that killed Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, of Kenosha, and Anthony Huber, 26, of Silver Lake, Wisconsin. Gaige Grosskreutz, 26, of West Allis, Wisconsin, was injured in the shooting.

Sign up for your local Patch newsletter and breaking
news updates for the latest news in your town.

Dominick Black, 19, of Kenosha, appeared in court in Kenosha County for a preliminary hearing Thursday. He is charged with two counts of intent to sell a dangerous weapon to a person under 18 years old. During the hearing, a judge denied the defense’s motion to dismiss multiple charges.

Black is accused of buying an AR-15 for Rittenhouse with Rittenhouse's money from a hardware store in northern Wisconsin, according to Antioch Police Department reports released to Patch as part of a Freedom of Information Act request.

Rittenhouse recently told the Washington Post he used pandemic relief funds to buy the gun.

"I got my $1,200 from the coronavirus Illinois unemployment because I was on furlough from YMCA," he told the Post. "And I got my first unemployment check, so I was like, 'Oh, I'll use this to buy it.'"

The gun was stored at Black’s stepfather’s house in Kenosha County — typically in a safe, according to police reports.

Black’s stepfather told police he knew his son had bought the gun for Rittenhouse. He also said he knew Rittenhouse was 17 years old, which is legally too young to possess a gun.

He required the gun to be stored in a safe in his garage and added he knew of only one time when Black and Rittenhouse used the gun while hunting at property they owned in northern Wisconsin.

“When they returned, [the stepfather] secured the rifle back into the gun case,” according to the police report.

In the days following the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha on Aug. 23, protests, which started off peacefully, broke out.

Amid the protests in Kenosha, the stepfather removed the gun from its case “for his personal protection.” He left it in his basement on Aug. 25, went to work and didn’t notice it was missing until Aug. 26 — the day after the shootings.

On Aug. 25, he also received a call from his son requesting to borrow sandpaper so he and Kyle could remove graffiti from the walls of downtown businesses, according to police reports. Dominick told his dad they’d been hired by a personal security service company.

Black said he believes Rittenhouse grabbed the gun from his stepfather’s house before they left. He told police after the shooting that he could have stopped it, but if he told Kyle he couldn’t take the rifle, he “would’ve thrown a fit,” according to the police report.

Black also told Rittenhouse following the shooting he thought he would be in more trouble since the gun Rittenhouse used was in his name. Police recovered the gun from Black’s trunk during the early morning hours of Aug. 26 while Black was staying at Rittenhouse’s apartment in Antioch, according to police reports.

Black is next expected in court on Jan. 13 for an arraignment. His bond was set at $2,500 during a hearing Thursday.