A Kansas man has been charged in connection with an incident at a Wichita gas station last summer, where police say he flaunted a weapon to threaten two Black kids and an adult and called them racial slurs.
A federal grand jury indicted 30-year-old Austin Schoemann on a number of firearms charges and also charged him with distribution of threatening messages online and brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.
The incident took place on July 27, 2022. Schoemann flashed a gun and called two Black boys racial slurs while the two kids were entering a Quiktrip gas station in southeast Wichita, authorities say. The victims weren’t identified due to their ages as minors.
Police say after he intimidated the kids he used his gun to threaten a Black woman after she intervened to protect the kids from Schoemann, The Wichita Eagle reports.
This isn’t the first instance where Schoemann has been accused of threatening Black people and using racist rhetoric.
From January 2022 to August 2022, Schoemann threatened to hurt or kill any Black people who visited a white woman’s home. It’s unclear if that woman was his neighbor, but he did make these threats and in-person at her home.
The indictment reads that Schoemann stood outside the woman’s home and shouted threats and racial slurs during times when he thought she had Black visitors or planned to invite Black people into her home.
Schoemann is also charged with two violations of using the internet to distribute videos and messages to the woman’s family members and others in which he “repeatedly threatened to shoot and kill Black people.”
Schoemann faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for the firearms charges, a maximum penalty of five years in prison for the distribution of threatening messages online, and a mandatory minimum of seven years in prison for brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.
Schoemann has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. His jury trial begins on July 31.
