Man pleads guilty in funeral shooting case

A man who fired a gun at a Fond du Lac funeral last year pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court.

Shelby Gene Boswell, 29, of Hugo, Minn. was accused of shooting and injuring another man in the back of the head at a funeral ceremony Oct. 18, 2019 in the Head Start gymnasium on the Fond du Lac Reservation.

Carlton County attorney Lauri Ketola said her office originally considered an attempted murder charge for Boswell, but the investigation didn’t support that. The weapons charge in U.S. District Court would result in a longer sentencing than an assault charge in state court, she said, which is why her office dropped the various state charges and handed over the case to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Boswell pleaded guilty Wednesday to being a felon in possession of a firearm and discharging a firearm in a school zone in a virtual hearing Wednesday.

Under the federal system the sentences must be served consecutively, Ketola said. The fact that the offense was committed in a school zone — the Head Start building houses preschool classes, and is adjacent to the Fond du Lac Ojibwe K-12 school — brings with it a greater sentence.

“He pleaded straight up, there was no plea bargain,” Ketola said. “It’s a really good result. We are very grateful to the U.S. Attorney’s office for prosecuting Mr. Boswell.”

There was no agreement on time, but sentencing guidelines call for a minimum of five years in prison and a maximum of 15 years. He’ll be sentenced in January.

According to the criminal complaint, Boswell approached 45-year-old Broderick Boshay Robinson from behind before the funeral service started, then “produced a rifle and fired the rifle at the man’s head.” Robinson was struck in the back of the head but remained conscious, and turned and saw the defendant pointing the rifle at him.

At that point, family members and funeral attendees moved to block Boswell from firing again, disarmed him and took the rifle to an empty locker in a nearby room. Robinson ran from the gym to another area. Robinson was taken to Community Memorial Hospital in Cloquet, then transferred to Essentia St. Mary’s Hospital in Duluth and was released the same day.

The incident shut down the heart of the Fond du Lac Reservation for more than two hours, as law enforcement officials from multiple agencies responded and Reservation officials made sure everyone was safe and had almost immediate access to mental health care.

It wasn’t the first violent crime Boswell has been accused of. Boswell was charged with two counts of second-degree assault in 2010 for beating three people with a baseball bat when he previously lived in Carlton County — an incident they said was related to Native Mob gang membership — and another federal case of “assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering” in June 2012.