‘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”.

  • Nougat
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    299 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      209 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.

        • Yeather
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          79 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
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            59 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
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              39 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
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                59 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
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                  29 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.

  • z3rOR0ne
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    1159 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      159 months ago

      Nah, hopefully this time he bites off more than he can chew and the most that the prosecutor is able to charge his next victim with is self defense or involuntary manslaughter.

    • magnetosphere
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      39 months ago

      People who (at best) don’t care about the reason for the protest, or (at worst) actively turn a peaceful protest into something chaotic and violent, will take advantage of situations when they present themselves - just like Rittenhouse did.

    • @[email protected]
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      229 months ago

      Imagine bootlicking so much for private property and capitalists that you think it is more sacred than people’s lives. Let alome that you think racism is fake or that the atrocities that people of color went through isn’t such a big deal.

    • Flying Squid
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      19 months ago

      Now I wanted to say something about the fact that we have lived over these last two or three summers with agony and we have seen our cities going up in flames. And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful, massive, non­-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem from a direct action point of view. I’m absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. And I feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that brings about tangible results. But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.

      – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., speech at Grosse Point High School in 1968

      https://www.gphistorical.org/mlk/mlkspeech/

  • circuitfarmer
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    1149 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      589 months ago

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

      • @[email protected]
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        9 months ago

        Doubt. No way he would be out there without his rifle. The man’s a coward, he can’t even face the consequences of his actions.

    • @[email protected]
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      9 months ago

      I wish an even more tragic fate. I hope he gets to live in a world filled with tolerance and empathy while he wallows away in hate and fear.

      • @[email protected]
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        419 months ago

        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.

          • @[email protected]
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            79 months ago

            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.

            • @[email protected]
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              19 months ago

              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.

              • @[email protected]
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                19 months ago

                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.

                • @[email protected]
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                  29 months ago

                  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.

  • @[email protected]
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    619 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      409 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      139 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
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      29 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…

  • @[email protected]
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    1699 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?

    • @[email protected]
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      309 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.

    • FartsWithAnAccent
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      629 months 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.

      • @[email protected]
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        429 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.

          • Funderpants
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            279 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.

            • @[email protected]
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              9 months ago

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

                • @[email protected]
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                  49 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.

      • @[email protected]
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        119 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!?

    • Flying Squid
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      189 months ago

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

      • @[email protected]
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        79 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.

      • @[email protected]
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        159 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
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          159 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.

          • @[email protected]
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            9 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      99 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      459 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.

      • @[email protected]
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        119 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.

  • @[email protected]
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    819 months 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-

    • @[email protected]
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      109 months 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

      • @[email protected]
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        29 months 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”

        • @[email protected]
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          39 months 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.

          • @[email protected]
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            19 months ago

            People of all races love pumpkin spice lattes, what are you talking about? It’s not a white person only thing

              • @[email protected]
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                18 months 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.

        • @[email protected]
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          29 months ago

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

  • Chozo
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    2219 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      9 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.