JANESVILLE — Two people from Janesville say they were robbed last week in Harvard, Illinois, while selling jewelry to someone through Facebook marketplace.
It turns out that one of the accused robbers is the friend who bought the gun that notorious shooter Kyle Rittenhouse used to kill two men in 2020 during protests in Kenosha, according to court records.
Dominick D. Black, 24, Rittenhouse’s friend, along with Blair W. Stiles, 19, and Solomon A. Bankhead, 25, all of Kenosha, were being held in the Walworth County Jail.
The incident began last Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025, about 1:45 a.m., when the Harvard Police Department was called for a report of an armed robbery that had just occurred.
According to a news release from the Harvard Police Department, the victims were chasing the robbers’ vehicle but had lost sight of it after crossing into Walworth County in Wisconsin.
The Walworth County Sheriff’s Office was provided with the suspect vehicle description.
The two victims from Janesville — a 32-year-old man and a 49-year-old woman, told police they had been selling jewelry through Facebook Marketplace. After agreeing on a price, the parties arranged to meet in Harvard to complete the transaction.
During the meeting, the robbers displayed a rifle and stole the jewelry before fleeing toward Wisconsin.
Harvard officers were later notified that the Walworth County Sheriff’s Office had located the suspects’ vehicle, which subsequently fled from deputies.
Walworth County Deputies pursued the vehicle into Racine County where, with assistance from the Racine County Sheriff’s Office, spike strips were deployed to disable the vehicle.
The three suspects were taken into custody without incident. The stolen jewelry and the rifle were recovered inside the vehicle.
In the case against Rittenhouse, prosecutors allege that the teen used the gun to shoot and kill two men during protests and riots over the Kenosha police shooting Jacob Blake, a Black man, in the back seven times two days earlier.
At the time, Rittenhouse was 17 and not of legal age to buy a gun in Wisconsin. He had given money to Black to buy the gun for him, according to a report from WREX TV in Rockford,
In 2022, Black pleaded no contest. The plea deal meant he no longer faced criminal charges and only had to pay a $2,000 fine.
Rittenhouse was acquitted on all charges on Nov. 19, 2021, by a jury in Kenosha that found that he acted in self-defense.
