‘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”.

21 points

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.

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-4 points

Good take until the end.

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4 points

Care to elaborate?

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6 points

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.

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21 points

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.

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40 points

I hope he dies a bloody death

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57 points
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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.

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11 points

No, he’s a hazard to others and belongs in a cage.

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6 points

Okay but can he at least wallow with broken legs?

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3 points

I hope he gets the George Zimmerman treatment, broke, wasting his time with frivolous lawsuits, and mostly forgotten

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47 points

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.

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23 points

Well shit, that happened to me without shooting anybody

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-17 points

He would have, if he didn’t have his rifle on him.

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17 points
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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.

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10 points

I hope his kids treat him like he treats the world.

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11 points

As long as it’s slow and painful, bloodless would be OK too.

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3 points

Gow dare you talk like this about a future congress man/president.

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176 points

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?

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13 points

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

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11 points

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.

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11 points

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.

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7 points

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.

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65 points

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.

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41 points

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.

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35 points

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

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11 points

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!?

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4 points

depends on if you’re white and if you can cry on demand (about the punishment)

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51 points

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.

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13 points

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.

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6 points

Let everyone know about his actions. The more people who don’t like him - the better.

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10 points

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.

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31 points

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.

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62 points

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.

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43 points

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.

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28 points

The people defending him were also bloodthirsty right-wing fanatics.

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3 points

Well, I didn’t get that sense. They seemed more like “enlightened centrist” kind of people. But who knows.

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3 points

It’s depressing how many assholes there are out there.

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2 points

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…

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10 points

Some of them are already here.

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14 points

They’d come up with new and exciting logical loopdeloops to explain how he’s still the victim in this situation.

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3 points

The mental gymnastics these people are capable of are depressingly impressive.

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244 points

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.

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3 points
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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.

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