Burnsville Man Indicted in New Year's Eve Death of Friend

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A Burnsville man has been indicted by a Dakota County grand jury on a manslaughter charge, almost seven months after police say he accidentally shot a friend while the two were playing a game in which they tried to catch bullets ejected from a 9-mm handgun.

Kyle Alan Dague, 23, is charged with two felonies: second-degree manslaughter, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine, and reckless discharge of a firearm within a city, which has a maximum penalty of two years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Dague is charged with shooting Justin J. Schauer, 22, in the early morning hours of Dec. 31, 2011, in an apartment in the 12700 block of Nicollet Avenue South.

Dague was initially arrested that morning after Burnsville police responded to a report of a shooting. Schauer was declared dead at the scene.

Dague told officers that he and Schauer had been playing a game in which they took turns pulling back the slide of a handgun and catching the ejected bullets in the air with their free hands. He said that when he wasn’t looking, he heard the gun go off and thought Schauer must have shot himself.

The Dakota County medical examiner subsequently determined that Schauer died from a 9-mm gunshot wound directly to his forehead. Later tests by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension led investigators to conclude that the shot was fired from 6 to 8 inches away, and that Dague’s DNA was found on the gun.

Police learned that Dague had purchased the handgun in April 2011. Witnesses told police that they had frequently seen Dague playing the game he described to police, and two people said they had seen Dague point the gun directly at others, pull the trigger and fire the unloaded weapon.

Another witness said Dague told him after Schauer’s death that Dague had pulled the trigger that night, according to court documents.

This is not the first time that the BPD has seen such a case. In 2011,  accidentally shot and killed his friend under similar circumstances. Dahl pleaded guilty to manslaughter in May.

“This appears to be another tragic example of the dangers associated with not handling a firearm in a safe manner,” Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom said in a statement Monday.

Dague was arrested and made his first court appearance Monday. He remained in the Dakota County Jail Monday afternoon on a $150,000 bond. His next court appearance is scheduled Oct. 22 in Dakota County District Court in Hastings.