‘I believed things he told me that I now understand to be one of … many 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 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”.
Hancock nonetheless said he initially believed Rittenhouse’s claims of self-defense when he first relayed his story about fatally shooting Rosenbaum and Huber. Yet that changed when he later became aware of text messages that surfaced as part of a civil lawsuit filed by the family of one of the men slain in Kenosha demanding wrongful death damages from Rittenhouse.
Wait are you trying to tell me that the kid who took a gun he didn’t own to a state he didn’t live in to shoot protestors he didn’t know ostensibly to protect businesses he’s unaffiliated with wanted to kill people?? Wow I am shocked. Shocked!
Honestly of course he wanted to murder people, anyone who disputes that is and has always been deliberately lying.
This was known back then. The judge blocked it. I can kind of see why because he didn't shoot any shoplifters. He shot people who threatened, chased, and assaulted him.
The whole situation was stupid and he shouldn't have been there but from all the video I've seen of the actual event he was pretty selective with his targets when it came to actually shooting people. It wasn't consistent with his bragging. I kind of wish people would stop giving him attention at this point because all they're accomplishing is giving him a platform to grift rightwingers from.
The analysis I read from a lawyer explained how Wisconsin's state laws on self defense are weirdly complex, and due to the exact order of events, under those laws, his intent technically didn't matter, and that's why it was inadmissible evidence. In most states it would be admissable, and he would be guilty. He even listed the laws out and while I don't recall any of the details now, it did seem perfectly logical to my layman's understanding. So it's not that the judge was biased, it's just that Rittenhouse, through dumb luck, happened to fall through a legal loophole. Wisconsin needs to fix it's laws, because it's abundantly clear he wanted to kill those people and morally speaking, I consider him to be an unrepentant murderer.
The prosecution team was 100% to blame for this little shit not getting what he deserved. I hope the litigants in the civil suit do a better job, but to be honest, they barely even need to try. Even I could put on a suit and walk in off the street and convince the jury of his liability in those killings. And that's just using the evidence we had back in 2020. With these text messages, I could call it in over Zoom while driving around delivering pizzas for 40 minutes.
It's easy to talk out of your ass about how you would have done a better job, but you clearly have no idea what the circumstances were that the prosecution team was dealing with. This particular piece of evidence for example was attempted to be admitted but was denied by the judge for being "irrelevant to the case." The prosecution was fighting a court stacked against them and you would have had a hard time as well.
America is so different from when I was a child. Late stage capitalism is destroying our once great national like a malignant brain tumor and it is painful to watch
what really did it for me was his ADHD pacing around in circles while the riot vehicles rolled in. this was a manic little kid, way too excited to be holding a gun.
Sounds like the article is a little confused, or this is brand new stuff, which is possible.
The comments about wanting to murder people that I knew about came him and a friend filming Black people leaving a cvs and them "knowing" they were all shoplifters and wanting to kill them for it. They'd just go sit outside drug stores because of propaganda and "filming subjects".
There was also the video where he tried to jump a younger girl and when 3 black guys (his age) yelled at him not to hit a young girl. He immediately fell to the ground in a fetal position and started crying and begging, literally that was his reaction to being told not to beat a young girl.
Those two examples together showed he didn't have the same basic reactions to a situation any normal human would have. And that he can't properly identify risks.
Let's be honest. Many, if not most, of us talked big when we were that age. The texts are just that. This is a kid with an inferiority complex trying to be seen as a tough guy. His actions that night were more like the coward he is inside. Which is not meant as an insult really. But he ran away. And to me he really did fire in the legal definition of self defense. The crime here is that he was there and armed at all. And further that society failed to help this kid find productive ways to prove his worth to himself. Kids aren't born like this.
Sure there is. If you are in a fist fight, and the other guy draws a gun and shoots. Now you can fire back in self defense. And the law in the state he was in doesn't have any mention of "not if you instigate it". You are welcome to your opinion, but it doesn't change the law, and really has nothing to do with my comment. Your motivations are a bit like Kyle, you just needed to be seen making a statement, even if it had nothing to do with the comment you replied to.
Sure, to a point. But not about murdering people. And we didn't then go and do just that. It shows some forethought. There have been other shooters who made posts before hand more or less admitting to wanting to provoke people, then claim self defense. They did not get to claim self defense.
Another of the special folk chiming in here. I have never threatened to kill anyone in my life (except maybe as a very obvious joke) and I've never so much as fired a gun.
I don't know who this spokesperson is, but it's strange that he didn't know about the pharmacy thing. It was well-publicized before the trial, along with a video. This seems more relevant than these text messages.
While great in this application, overall this is an extremely shit idea. Do you really think the same court that let the dipshit go wouldn't abuse the change by trying the poor and minorities over and over until charges stick?
Life is complicated, think through the consequences of your ideas.
And not just the poor and minorities. Trump apparently had the DOJ go after people he perceived as disloyal or political enemies, costing them millions of dollars in legal fees. Imagine if the government then just got a redo whenever it wanted. Even for a fairly wealthy person, that's going to be a potent tool to silence them.
It's already a really bad standard. There's people who have had the same trial 4 times and there was more than reasonable doubt as to their guilt. If the prosecutor wanted to try Rittenhouse again he could have. And loosening this standard will only make it easier to put innocent people in prison.