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.

  • originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    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.

    • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Edit: not a single inaccurate statement in my comment, but narrative-clingers gotta downvote because inconvenient facts just make them that mad, lol. Shameful.

      Fact checking time~

      the kid who took a gun he didn’t own to

      The gun was not in his possession until the day after he arrived.

      to a state he didn’t live in

      But that he previously worked in, and his father lived in. Not exactly a strange neighborhood.

      to shoot protestors he didn’t know

      It’s obvious he didn’t go there “to shoot protesters”, for several factual, verifiable reasons:

      1. He had hours of opportunities to open fire on protesters, and never did. He did not even anti-protest.
      2. He didn’t shoot anyone unprovoked, and every time he was provoked, he ran away instead of escalating.
      3. The only people who were shot by him that day were people who, when he ran away from their provocation, instead of letting him run away, chased him down and tried to kill him when they caught him. He prevented their murder attempts. This is crystal
      4. None of those who were shot were ever protesting; all three were destructive rioters with violent criminal records who were there not there to support any cause.
      5. Actions speak louder than words. Tons more people, tell their buddies they’d ‘kick that guy’s ass if I was there’ etc., but do not act that way at all when they’re actually in the situation. What happens in the actual situation is what matters. Also, none of the rioters who attacked Rittenhouse were known to have shoplifted/looted, so they don’t even fall into the category he was speaking about.

      ostensibly to protect businesses he’s unaffiliated with

      There are text records of the business requesting his help, and one of the co-owners of that business, after denying it, was seen taking a posed ‘thank you’ picture with him after they had spent some time at the dealership that day. The evidence is clear they were there because they were directly requested to be there.

      Honestly of course he wanted to murder people, anyone who disputes that is and has always been deliberately lying.

      Nope, but I can understand how you’d reach that conclusion, considering you have basically every relevant fact of the case wrong. That’s what happens when you get narratives from social media, instead of drawing conclusions based on facts and evidence. There’s a ton of hard video evidence, you know.

      It’s funny that on the day the verdict was delivered, the megathreads on Reddit announcing it were full of people admitting coming to terms with the fact that it was ironclad self-defense, and that social media and sensationalized news sources had created a narrative that directly contradicted the facts. And now years later, the only people still really talking about that case are the ideologues on both wings still clinging so desperately to those bullshit narratives, still repeating the same easily-debunked talking points they were fed by their echo chamber of choice, that were debunked before the trial even began. Hell, you can still find people claiming all the people he shot were black, lol.

      This case has become such a perfect litmus test for identifying ideologues over people who both care about what’s actually true, and are actually willing to inform themselves instead of just swallowing whatever talking points they’re fed. Especially considering how EASY it is to debunk the bullshit, in this particular case.

      It almost makes me not want to correct the lies, to make sure I can keep easier tabs on the liars, lol.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I’m only surprised you didn’t bring up that he killed a registered sex offender. His defenders usually think that’s relevant for some reason.

        • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Most pushing back against the false narrative don’t actually think it’s relevant, vis a vis self-defense, but generally they consider it a bonus.

          I know I’m not mourning Rosenbaum. Not only is he 100% responsible for his own death, having taken several completely irrationally-aggressive actions that collectively led to that end, but he just happens to be a five-time child rapist? Yeah, not exactly shedding tears for him over here.

      • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        none of the rioters who attacked Rittenhouse were known to have shoplifted/looted

        Shoplifters and especially looters is a common rightwing racist buzzword used to justify them being violent. It was never truly his intention to go after looters, that was always a codeword. Please look into people who patrol after hurricanes for looters - it’s a racist idea and they are forming little KKK groups literally. They did that as well in Oregon during the Blue River fires and literally almost got themselves and others killed, protecting “property from looters” that was literally going to be burned up anyway, and there weren’t any looters!!! Can’t emphasize this enough, no looters, so they were just delaying people escaping at gunpoint. Also can’t emphasize enough that looting and stealing is nonviolent, whereas shooting someone to death is quite violent.

        If Rittenhouse was explicitly supposed to protect a business from looters, he would have security guard clearances and a paper pay trail. No, he was there to be a violent, possibly racist, pos. Quite clearly.

        https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/864818368/the-history-behind-when-the-looting-starts-the-shooting-starts

        https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/us/looting-starts-shooting-starts.html

        https://harvardpolitics.com/a-peoples-history-of-looting/

        • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Nice work ignoring everything else and hyper-focusing on ‘he really meant black people when he said ‘shoplifters’, trust me’.

          Meanwhile, none of his attackers were black either, lol.

          Keep grasping at those straws.

          • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Wdym? We are talking about his intent here, right? And YOU and the defense claim he was acting righteously because he was “stopping looters.” Well, if “stopping looters” is a codeword for an action which historically means “I’m going to go out and violently harm people that are black or poor or who fit my idea of a looter,” then it’s entirely relevant.

            • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              We are talking about his intent here, right?

              Yes, which is ultimately defined by his actions. If his actions contradict his words, you can’t pretend the words hold more weight than what he actually did.

              Nothing he did that day in Kenosha supports the assumption that his intention was to go there and shoot anyone. Nothing. Period.

              And YOU and the defense claim he was acting righteously because he was “stopping looters.”

              Uh, no, nobody claimed that. Did you even watch the trial?

              • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                His actions and words are not contradictory though. There’s no contradiction. He wants to hunt down people under the guise of “looters”, by his own texts, and this historically is a justification for violence in this country. Then he conducted violence. Where’s the contradiction?

                Everything in his life for months indicates his intention that night was violence.

                • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  His actions and words are not contradictory though. There’s no contradiction. He wants to hunt down people under the guise of “looters”, by his own texts

                  And then he…hunted down nobody. Aggressed on nobody. Fled as his first reaction every time unprovoked aggression came his way, instead of ever escalating. Only used his weapon when the alternative was literally to forfeit his own life.

                  “No contradiction”, huh? Are you that foolish to really think that, or that scummy to claim it, fully knowing how bullshit it is?