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.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    3 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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      3 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.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Cool. I had no intention of doing that. I just wanted to see if you’d do what I thought you’d do. You did.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                I didn’t manipulate you into replying the way I knew you would. You just did what his defenders always do.

                • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  Debunk the bullshit with facts? Yeah, that is what people with integrity try to do.

                  Though, a correction: I’m a defender of the truth, not of Rittenhouse. I have no attachment to the kid, but I hate deception, and I just happened to be curious enough to make myself very familiar with the facts of this case when it became a big controversy, and once I realized how many basic things were complete fabrications, it just made me more curious to get at the actual facts, instead of believing dipshits’ narratives in the media, especially those who had already taken a side based on their pre-existing political biases.

                  The fact that most of the bullshit still floating around about this case is still REALLY easily-debunked surface-level garbage that only a gullible, or a ‘true believer’ in one of those narratives (though I repeat myself) just makes it easier. Half of this shit is so blatantly wrong even the prosecution in the trial didn’t even TRY to argue it, lol.

                  I like correcting falsehoods, and making liars mad is fun, so here I am.

                  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                    3 months ago

                    Nope. That’s not what I was talking about and, unless you haven’t been reading my replies, you know that’s not what I was talking about, so I’m not sure who you’re trying to be dishonest with.

    • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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      3 months ago

      I mean he did, but he both didn’t know that at the time and it’s not relevant to the goings on that night.

      I’m just going to lead with this: he’s an idiot, and in an ideal world he would have not been in Kenosha that night at all.

      That said, if you followed the trial and the evidence presented, it very obviously fit the definition of self defense.

      I wish them the best in their civil trial, but unless they’re relying very hard on civil trials having a lower standard of evidence, are getting criminal trial evidence excluded, or are including new evidence not part of the criminal trial that makes a massive difference they probably won’t win.

      Shooting Rosenbaum will likely have the easiest time if they can pay an ME to give contradictory expert testimony to what came from the criminal trial. Because while it’s on camera, you can’t clearly see what went on with their hands and the gun in the video, and have to rely on the ME and testimony to fill in the gaps.

      Getting wrongful death civil damages for someone shooting someone who knocked them to the ground and was coming at them with a blunt object will be harder, but not as hard as for Grosskreutz, unless he can bar his criminal trial testimony from the civil case or come up with an excuse why his answers don’t mean what they appear to.