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 onetime compatriot of Kyle Rittenhouse was recently arrested on criminal charges in Wisconsin over an incident that occurred in neighboring Illinois, law enforcement in both states say.
Dominick Black, 24, who hails from Kenosha, stands accused of one count each of operating a vehicle to flee or elude law enforcement, recklessly endangering safety, and armed robbery, according to authorities in Walworth and McHenry counties. The first county is in the Badger State; the second county is in the Land of Lincoln.
The defendant is being detained in the Walworth County Jail on the fleeing and endangerment charges; he is also subject to a hold on an armed robbery warrant out of McHenry County, jail records show. As of this writing, Black is awaiting extradition to McHenry County.
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The underlying incident occurred during the early morning hours on Dec. 11, in the parking lot of Harvard High School, in the small town of the same name — which is situated roughly equidistant between the broader Chicago metro area and Milwaukee — authorities claim.
Just before 2 a.m., police received reports of an armed robbery, a press release issued by Harvard Police Department says.
“It was reported that the victims were pursuing the offending vehicle and its occupants but lost sight of it after crossing into Wisconsin,” the press release reads. “The Walworth County Sheriff’s Office was provided with the suspect vehicle 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.
