A Twin Cities man has been indicted on federal charges for allegedly shooting his sister's boyfriend in the head with a rifle at their grandmother's funeral on the Fond du Lac Reservation last month.
The indictment, filed this week, states that Shelby Boswell, 28, possessed and fired the weapon within 1,000 feet of a high school. A grand jury also charged Boswell with being a felon in possession of a firearm. The indictment came after an investigation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Fond du Lac police.
Boswell, whose address is listed in Hugo, was charged last month in Carlton County District Court with first and second-degree felony assault in connection with the Oct. 18 shooting.
According to the charges, Boswell entered the Fond du Lac Head Start building's gymnasium, where the funeral ceremony was about to start. Boswell approached his sister's boyfriend from behind and fired a rifle at the back of his head. The boyfriend, 45-year-old Broderick Robinson, of Minneapolis, remained conscious and turned around to see Boswell pointing the rifle at him.
Family members and others attending the funeral moved to block Boswell from firing at Robinson again and disarmed him, according to the charges. They took the rifle out of the gym to an empty locker room nearby.
Robinson was later taken to a Duluth hospital for noncritical injuries and released, Cloquet police said.
Boswell ran from the gym but was detained by police officers in the parking lot. He was also charged with felonies for possession of heroin and meth, which officers found on him when he was arrested.
A previous indictment, unsealed in 2012, tied Boswell to a criminal conspiracy case against a Native American gang. Boswell later pleaded guilty to assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering. He's also been convicted previously of second- and third-degree assault.
