Man indicted in shooting of sister's boyfriend at grandmother's funeral on Fond du Lac Reservation

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.

The shoot­ing sent a school and trib­al of­fices into lock­down for more than two hours. Of­fi­cials helped move the fu­ner­al to an­oth­er gym­na­sium near­by so mourn­ers could fin­ish the cer­e­mo­ny be­fore sun­down, in keep­ing with cul­tur­al tra­di­tions.

Staff writer Katie Galioto contributed to this report. Andy Mannix • 612-673-4036