‘I believed things he told me that I now understand to be … lies,’ Dave Hancock says in new Rittenhouse documentary

A former spokesperson for Kyle Rittenhouse says he became disillusioned with his ex-client after learning that he had sent text messages pledging to “fucking murder” shoplifters outside a Chicago pharmacy before later shooting two people to death during racial justice protests in Wisconsin in 2020.

Dave Hancock made that remark about Rittenhouse – for whom he also worked as a security guard – on a Law & Crime documentary that premiered on Friday. The show explored the unsuccessful criminal prosecution of Rittenhouse, who killed Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

As Hancock told it on The Trials of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 90-minute film’s main subject had “a history of things he was doing prior to [the double slaying], specifically patrolling the street for months with guns and borrowing people’s security uniforms, doing whatever he could to try to get into some kind of a fight”.

  • Chozo@fedia.io
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    2 months ago

    Remember the video of him getting into a fight with some teenage girl just a few days before he killed those people? The video they wouldn’t let the jury see because it might show that Rittenhouse was an escalation-seeking rage-aholic? The video that his spokesperson has definitely seen?

    Yeah, he was never disillusioned. He knew who this bastard was all along. He just stopped making money off the kid, is all.

    • Tartas1995
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      He is saying it now because that “turns” the documentary from “supporters” into a documentary from “critics”. That helps sales. And now the news coverage is pulling attention to it again and of course, that is good for the sales/views.

      So I disagree about the stopping to make money with him part, he is milking the other side now.

  • norimee@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Why is this waste of space still in the news? And a documentary? Seriously? Can we please ignore him going forward and let him be forgotten, unimportant and inconsequential in a hole, like this litte rat deserves?

    • FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io
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      Hey, he just wants to kill some more people. No big deal right?

      checks rulebook

      My mistake, murdering shoplifters is actually still kind of a big no-no. Apologies.

      • norimee@lemmy.world
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        he had sent text messages pledging to “fucking murder” shoplifters outside a Chicago pharmacy before later shooting two people to death during racial justice protests in Wisconsin in 2020.

        That was before he went to Kenosha.

        And honestly, we all knew he did it on porpouse. This is nothing new. Blowing this up and giving it more attention just furthers the right’s hero worship of him.

        More attention makes it worse. It makes him an Icon and martyr for the white supremacists.

        • dezmd@lemmy.world
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          Premeditation and intent. How is this weasely fuck not in prison for life.

          • Funderpants @lemmy.ca
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            2 months ago

            The insidious nature of systemic racism is why. White men are given the widest possible berth to acquire weapons and play vigilante. As we saw here, a white guy who talks about murdering people can, over and over, put himself into dangerous situations until he gets the opportunity to kill and get away with it. This isn’t even the only example in the last five years.

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              Usually the situation they put themselves in is taking a job as a cop and refusing to deescalate any situation.

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                  He was banned from trying to join any branch of the military because he did so poorly on the ASVAB (and probably also failed a psych eval). While many police departments are deeply corrupt, I don’t think any of them want the bad press that would come with hiring him. Maybe he can get hired as a deputy in a sheriff’s department run by someone like Arpaio.

      • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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        Really? They put a rule against murder in the book? Is that new? No? Well then they should tell people that! How are we supposed to know not to kill people if they don’t tell us that’s against the rules!?

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      Unfortunately, he is very consequential. If you went to an NRA self-defense shooting instructor in 2019 and laid out everything Rittenhouse did, and then asked if that was valid self defense, the answer would be unequivocally no. What Rittenhouse found was an argument for shooting protestors and getting away with it.

      That’s scary, because if you spend much time around gun shows and gun clubs, you’ll meet plenty of people who are clearly looking for an excuse to shoot somebody with a legal loophole.

      • Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz
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        The judge created the legal precedent for the loophole.

        The greater evil behind it all is a situation where a Blackwater type organization is paid for security and people protest, then they open fire and start killing. They can all use the Rittenhouse defense and get away with it.

    • Soup@lemmy.world
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      People on the right still believe he was defending himself or just a kid or whatever whatever. This news shows that it was totally planned, that he willingly put himself in harms way to murder people like he was judge, jury, and executioner over some shoplifting.

      It’s important that we go “oh look, he really is, undeniably, a rotten piece of filth” and can throw out all these notions of “well-intentioned” people who end up killing people like this.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      For one thing, whether or not you or I like it, he’s a right-wing darling and he needs to stop being one.

      • norimee@lemmy.world
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        And that’s exactly why we shouldn’t give him attention and media space.

        He is a “right-wing darling” because of articles and documentaries like that. He is triggering a negative reaction from the other side and that’s why he’s hailed a hero by the right.

        More attention makes it worse.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          If we do not give him attention, they still will. All you are doing is not letting people know who they think is praiseworthy. I don’t see that as helpful.

          You do not get to control who the right idolizes. All you can hope to do is shave some of them off by explaining why those people should not be idolized.

          Why people who have gone through all of childhood haven’t found out that ignoring bullies doesn’t actually make them go away is beyond me.

          • MagicShel@programming.dev
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            One of the differences between the right and the left, you just made me realize, is how we treat heroes.

            Kyle murders two protestors and he’s a hero. He can fuck it up, but that’s all it takes to get there.

            If a left leaning person became a hero for rescuing cats out of a house fire, you’d have a hundred reporters digging up dirt about how he cuts in line at Starbucks, or an ex coworker thought his obsession with cute animal butts was a little creepy.

            I’m minimizing. People who do good things sometimes have done real shit but I don’t want to sidetrack. Point is, the right elevates their heroes while the left humanizes them. It’s not just a different playing field, it’s a whole other sport.

      • TallonMetroid@lemmy.world
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        Well, he already got himself cancelled once over President Convict’s 2nd Amendment bonafides. Maybe he’ll do it again and it’ll stick this time.

    • almar_quigley@lemmy.world
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      I only take issue with you implying rats are bad. They wonderful smart little creatures, cleaner than your family dog, and would never cross state lines armed to kill protestors because they psychotic. Although they may bite your finger mistaking it for food. And damn can their little teeth hurt.

  • Red_October@lemmy.world
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    Wait you mean when he grabbed a rifle and traveled an inordinate distance to the scene of a riot and shot two people to death, he wasn’t just an innocent bystander after all?

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      Slight correction, he only drove about 30 minutes. Wikipedia says he left Antioch IL which is 5 miles south of the state border to go murder protesters.

      Only way he really went out of his way is if he road the Metra commuter train from Antioch to Kenosha since each are the terminus of different Metra routes, and this was probably outside of normal Metra operating hours. Plus he doesn’t strike me as someone who would take a 5 hour train ride to travel 20 miles

      Note: I just picked the Metra stations in both Antioch and Kenosha for the below map. I don’t care enough to bother getting more accurate than that

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        The real point here is that he was not in danger until he sought it out. He didn’t suddenly find himself a bystander in a dangerous situation, he went out of his way to place himself there. He actively sought this situation out, placed himself in harm’s way, put in active effort to get himself involved. He then acted like he was just defending himself when he found the exact situation he’d been actively seeking, just so that he had a convenient excuse to shoot some black people.

  • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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    Imagine being such a bootlicker that you want to kill people for property crime, even when that property isn’t yours. What a loser.

    • Red_October@lemmy.world
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      He just wanted to kill people. That they were black made it more attractive, and the property crime was a convenient excuse.

  • z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml
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    Rittenhouse has a hero complex, and can’t accept he’s nothing more than a deranged little shithead everyone knows is just a murderer that got away with it.

    No one likes him, not even the right. The right used him when he was useful and then threw him away. How sad and pathetic that those were his “best” days, and they are behind him.

    He’ll now try to regain his “glory” days by reliving that time he murdered innocent people. And hopefully this time he’s put away for life.

      • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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        That seems like it would violate the sixth amendment. Besides, we knew all of this back then.

        • BalooWasWahoo@links.hackliberty.org
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          I know of some individuals who have been sitting in jail, waiting for a trial, for longer than the maximum sentence they could have been given. If you are poor and/or live in a shitty area, your ‘rights’ don’t always mean all that much.

        • ravhall@discuss.online
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          No, you have a right to a speedy trial. You don’t have the right to be charged with a crime in a speedy way while evidence is gathered against you.

          Sometimes we should wait for them to incriminate themselves.

          • Wogi@lemmy.world
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            Yes you fucking do.

            You cannot be arrested without charge and detained indefinitely. Generally it’s between 24 and 72 hours before they’re required to charge you or release you.

  • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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    Wait, you mean the guy everyone was saying went to Kenosha to murder people, actually went to Kenosha to murder people?!?!?! Color me shocked.

    Only idiots and the mentally deficient bought his official story.

  • Soup@lemmy.cafe
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    Let’s not forget how the judge in that case dismissed video evidence of him saying he wanted to shoot people. If that didn’t change this assholes mind-

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    Oh imagine that everybody with a brain was right all along and some f****** lunatic murderer got off again great job America

  • DJDarren@thelemmy.club
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    Jesus, how was Rittenhouse murdering those guys only four years ago? It feels like it was at least ten.

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    I wish I was still on reddit for this shit. I remember when it happened and every fucking bootlicking Magoo was defending this shit stain and using the law as if they understood self defense in that context. They worshipped that guy for being “a good guy with a gun” and had every excuse in the world for why he was a victim…

    Man I hope they’re seeing this.

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      Yeah I was pretty shocked at how widespread his defenders were. Regardless of whether what he did was technically self defense or not, it’s clear he’s a bloodthirsty right-wing fanatic. There’s no need to defend his public image, even if you agree with the verdict.

        • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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          Well, I didn’t get that sense. They seemed more like “enlightened centrist” kind of people. But who knows.

          • neoman4426@fedia.io
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            Which 99.9% of the time “Enlightened Centrist” translates to “Right wing hack who is too embarrassed to come out and say it”

            • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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              You’re not wrong but it’s still a distinct crowd from the Rittenhouse type people. Usually the enlightened centrists are very concerned about violence but I guess the courts gave them a shield to suddenly be comfortable with killing in this instance. Maybe I was naive to take their stated opinions at face value.

    • Facebones@reddthat.com
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      They’d come up with new and exciting logical loopdeloops to explain how he’s still the victim in this situation.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      Didn’t you hear? He killed a registered sex offender so it’s all excused.

      He couldn’t have possibly known the man he killed was a sex offender, but…

      • Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz
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        I wish him a life of obscurity, poverty, and extreme loneliness. May he achieve nothing and be just smart enough to realize what a waste his entire existence has been.

          • Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz
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            I wish for you to find a fun thing, be it playing guitar, drawing silly comics, or making obscure art. You need not create for anyone but yourself.

            • charade_you_are@sh.itjust.works
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              I’d rather find a large pot of gold but not bad advice. I should pick up the guitar again. Everyone thanked me for not creating music for them so it will be for myself.

              • Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz
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                I do the same with my guitar. Have a bunch of little songs and riffs, save them all on my PC. No one will ever hear them or hear me play guitar, just do it as a creative outlet for myself.

                Played probably 90 minutes last night with my headphones on, was a great decompression.

                • charade_you_are@sh.itjust.works
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                  I also have a bunch of little riffs saved somewhere. Hours of terrible tape from when i was younger too. I have tendency to criticize myself more harshly than I should but the criticism is somewhat accurate so I’m torn. I just can’t not play sloppy. Decent ideas in my head but it’s nearly impossible for me to execute.

                  Anyway, it was still fun and it’d be nice to try playing again.

      • CRT 📺@lemmy.world
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        I hope he gets the George Zimmerman treatment, broke, wasting his time with frivolous lawsuits, and mostly forgotten

  • Ragdoll X@lemmy.world
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    Zero surprises there. So many gun nuts are just itching to kill someone, and to those who were paying any attention it was abundantly obvious that’s exactly the kind of person who Rittenhouse is considering his fake crying, taking pictures with the judge, as well as buddying up to nazis and literally making a game to celebrate his shooting.