Federal Indictment Charged On Man Who Opened Fire On Grounds Of Fond du Lac Head Start

Shelby Gene Boswell

A federal indictment is being charged on Shelby Gene Boswell with possessing and discharging a firearm in a school zone on the Fond du Lac Reservation. The federal indictment charging was announced today by United States Attorney Erica H. MacDonald.

Boswell will make his initial appearance today at 2:00 pm before Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Cowan Wright in U.S. District Court in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Boswell allegedly entered the Fond du Lac Head Start gymnasium in Cloquet where a funeral was being held. Boswell allegedly walked behind his sister and her boyfriend, Broderick Boshay Robinson, 45, of Minneapolis, and then shot Robinson with a rifle in the back of the head, according to the criminal complaint.

After being shot, Robinson turned around and saw Boswell pointing a rifle at him, the complaint said. Robinson then ran out of the gymnasium.

Funeral mourners disarmed and briefly restrained Boswell before he left the gym, and went to the parking lot where he was later arrested by police.

According to the indictment and documents filed in court, on October 18, 2019, Boswell knowingly and with reckless disregard for the safety of others, discharged a firearm on the grounds of Fond du Lac Head Start, which is within a distance of 1,000 feet of the grounds of Fond du Lac Ojibwe High School.

Because he has prior felony convictions in Beltrami County, Carlton County, and in U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, Boswell is prohibited under federal law from possessing firearms or ammunition at any time.

This case is the result of an investigation conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Fond du Lac Police Department. This case was brought as part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), an initiative that brings together federal, state, and local law enforcement to combat violent crime. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Andrew R. Winter and Bradley M. Endicott are prosecuting the case.