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.

  • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    33
    ·
    1 month ago

    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.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 month ago

      And then we all grabbed a gun and actually killed people.

      Oh wait.

      And no. There is no self defense claim when you instigated it.

      • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 month ago

        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.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 month ago

          That sounds a lot like you instigated a fight and had ragrets when the “find out” part came around. If self defense is two people justified for shooting at each other then we live in insane land and nothing matters anymore because you can just walk into a store and self defense yourself some groceries. “I just wanted groceries and the clerk was mean to me when I tried to leave!”

          Except of fucking course not because we don’t live in insane land and all the self defense laws have exceptions for committing crime. Like instigating a fight specifically to murder someone.

    • pingveno@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 month ago

      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.

      • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 month ago

        It can influence a jury, sure. But it isn’t proof of much of anything other than his poor mental state, and how brainwashed he was.

    • Wiz@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 month ago

      Many, if not most, of us talked big when we were that age.

      Doubt. I never threatened to kill people when I was that age. I never wanted a gun.

      Maybe I’m special.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 month ago

        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.