‘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”.

  • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    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.

  • Red_October@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    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?

    • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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      23 days ago

      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

      • Red_October@lemmy.world
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        22 days ago

        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.

  • Chozo@fedia.io
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    24 days 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@discuss.tchncs.de
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      23 days ago

      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.

  • Disgracefulone@discuss.online
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    24 days ago

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

      • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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        24 days ago

        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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          24 days ago

          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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          24 days ago

          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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            23 days ago

            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.

  • Soup@lemmy.cafe
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    24 days ago

    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-

    • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      I always knew he was a piece of shit because of how white he is and how much support fox gave him. – cynical man

      • SoftNoodle@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        What do you mean by “how white he is”? Why do we keep injecting race into everything.

        Imagine someone commented about “how black he is”

        • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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          23 days ago

          you take it out of context. white as in “pumpkin spice latte”.

          that psychopath was the definition of “angry racist white dude with a gun”.

          on top of it all, the crime was racially motivated because he showed up to a BLM protest with an assault gun.

          if he had been there to support the protest, he would have come unarmed. but he didn’t, did he? he went there to murder innocent civilians.

          In another text, Rittenhouse sent: “I wish they would come into my house,” adding, “I will fucking murder them.”

          in summary, he is a white racist irredeemable piece of shit that deserves life in prison where he can be a nice prison wife, because even the Nazis in prison would make him their weak ass bitch.

              • BreathingUnderWater@lemmy.ca
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                3 days ago

                Who are you? I’ve seen your post history (now) since you mentioned mine. Interesting. I’m not trolling, I’m a genuine person. It honestly feels like you were the one who is trolling. Sorry you were so offended. Hope you have a better life sometime.

        • blazeknave@lemmy.world
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          23 days ago

          Stfu he murdered bc he’s a racist and you’re whining about feeling triggered by true words on the internet?

  • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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    22 days ago

    He said on camera that he wanted to kill shoplifters when he saw some shoplifters leave with a new cheap items. This was not admitted as evidence during his trial.

  • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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    24 days ago

    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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      24 days ago

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

  • DJDarren@thelemmy.club
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    24 days ago

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

  • Nougat@fedia.io
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    24 days ago

    For a gun to be effective against an attacker, that attacker needs to be about 25 feet away or farther when you decide to shoot them. Closer than that, it’s a melee before you get an accurate shot off.

    This means that you need to escalate a situation to gunplay way before you’re in actual physical danger, in most cases.

    Unless you’re walking along brandishing your weapon, in order to be ready for a possible threat. This in itself escalates any situation you’re in to “one with a gun in it,” whether you’re ever in any danger or not.

    Small arms are offensive weapons. They cannot be used for defense without making otherwise safe conditions unsafe, or by escalating a possibly threatening situation into a definitely dangerous one.

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      24 days ago

      Generally yes, unless you’re already in a defensive position and anticipating an attacker. But I’m pretty sure driving a half hour into the next state doesn’t count as a defensive position.

        • yeather@lemmy.ca
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          24 days ago

          Small arms are not inherently offensive or defensive weapons. In fact a pistol is more defensive than offensive in many circumstances. The only true offensive weapons are those that cannot be used defensively, ones that cannot discriminate against targets, for example, a grenade.

          • Nougat@fedia.io
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            24 days ago

            I’m still going to stand by my previous comment.

            My point was that for small arms to be used as an effective protection against threat, they must be used before the threat is imminent, i.e., in a “first strike” offensive capacity.

            While it’s possible that an open carried firearm might have a deterrent effect, its presence makes every situation into “one with a gun in it,” which is necessarily less safe than one without a gun in it.

            • yeather@lemmy.ca
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              24 days ago

              By your second point, the situation only becomes less safe for one person, the one without a gun. Having a firearm makes you more safe against a threat without one, and no more or less safe from a threat with one.

              • Nougat@fedia.io
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                24 days ago

                Nope, it makes you less safe, too, especially if the threat is closer than 25 feet. They have the opportunity to wrest the gun from your control and use it against you.

                • yeather@lemmy.ca
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                  24 days ago

                  If someone is attacking me, I would rather take the chance of getting my gun out and ending them than trying to wrestle with them and potentially losing. If someone is attempting to kill you, I would take the great equalizer any day.

  • norimee@lemmy.world
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    24 days 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?

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      24 days ago

      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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        24 days ago

        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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      24 days ago

      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.

    • FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io
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      24 days ago

      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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        24 days ago

        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.worldM
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          24 days ago

          Premeditation and intent. How is this weasely fuck not in prison for life.

      • norimee@lemmy.world
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        24 days ago

        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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          24 days ago

          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.

    • Crikeste@lemm.ee
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      24 days ago

      “Good guys with guns” as a slogan was always going to turn out this way.

      That’s one of the many reasons Americans are such stupid people, they see the world in a “good guy / bad guy” dichotomy, where they are the good guys. And “good guys” and their actions are all based on beliefs and opinions. It’s justification for YOUR atrocities while acting disgusted at others.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        22 days ago

        I agree with you 100%. So many of my fellow Americans (of every political stripe) see the world in that black and white way. There’s no nuance to be had here most of the time and it’s depressing.

        • Drusas@fedia.io
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          21 days ago

          There is nuance to be had, it’s just been overwritten by the mainstream media trying to pretend that they’re centrist.

      • Drusas@fedia.io
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        24 days ago

        You might be shocked to learn that not all Americans are the same. Bigot.

          • Drusas@fedia.io
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            21 days ago

            By pointing out that hating on everybody from a single country is bigotry?

            Obviously your opinion is more common, but I disagree.

              • Drusas@fedia.io
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                20 days ago

                I missed that you were replying to a comment I made to OP, but you are not OP. So I have no idea.

                Edit: Oh wait, nevermind. You did share your opinion and it is in line with OP’s.

                There’s no nuance to be had here most of the time and it’s depressing.

                There is nuance to be had because not everybody is the same.

                I understand that there are tons of problems in the US, but hating on an entire culture/people is bigotry no matter who it is aimed towards.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                  19 days ago

                  Sigh. That is not my opinion about any country, that’s my opinion about our species.

                  “There is no nuance to be had here” means that people don’t notice the nuance because they have their own personal agendas. That’s not an American problem, that’s a global problem.

                  And good job proving that by deciding you know what my opinion on a subject I never opined on is and deciding that something unrelated was my opinion because of your agenda.

                  So thanks.