‘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”.

  • 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?

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      2 months 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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        2 months 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.

      • norimee@lemmy.world
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        2 months 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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          2 months 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.

          • MagicShel@programming.dev
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            2 months ago

            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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        2 months ago

        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.

    • FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io
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      2 months ago

      Hey, he just wants to kill some more people. No big deal right?

      checks rulebook

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

      • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        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!?

      • norimee@lemmy.world
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        2 months 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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          2 months ago

          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.

                • medgremlin@midwest.social
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                  2 months ago

                  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.

    • Soup@lemmy.world
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      2 months 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.

    • almar_quigley@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      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.

  • DJDarren@thelemmy.club
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    2 months ago

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

  • z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    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.

  • Ragdoll X@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    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 with nazis and literally making a game to celebrate his shooting.

  • 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@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 months 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.

  • Nougat@fedia.io
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    2 months 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.

        • yeather@lemmy.ca
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          2 months 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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            2 months 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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              2 months 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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                2 months 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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                  2 months 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.

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      2 months 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.

  • Asafum@feddit.nl
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    2 months ago

    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.

    • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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      2 months ago

      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.

    • Facebones@reddthat.com
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      2 months ago

      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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      2 months ago

      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…

  • MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    One of the ways that I enjoyed shitting on Kyle Rittenhouse, was to say that I would never want to be around anyone who now has a taste for human blood.

    That was supposed to be hyperbolic.

  • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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    2 months 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.

    • Crikeste@lemm.ee
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      2 months 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.

      • Drusas@fedia.io
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        2 months ago

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

          • Drusas@fedia.io
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            2 months 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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                2 months 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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                  2 months 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.

            • Crikeste@lemm.ee
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              2 months ago

              I bet you do. How inappropriate are school shootings, Mr. Gun Advocate?

              Best not think about that, huh

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        2 months 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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          2 months ago

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

  • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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    2 months 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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      2 months ago

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