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.
Yeah… he was an idiot for choosing to bring a firearm near known civil unrest, but it was pretty clearly self-defense. I mean they ran after him and attempted to seize his firearm…
Pretty good case for gun control as a concept, though. Ultimately both parties were endangered and forced into action by fear for their lives by the fact that the firearm was in the situation to begin with. As a protestor, I’d fear for my life if an armed counter protestor showed up, cause you know the cops aren’t gonna keep you alive if that guy chooses to start shooting. But any action I could take to prevent that puts the firearm owner in a position to reasonably fear for their lives. The mere appearance of the firearm puts the situation on a path to escalation. Maybe lethal weapons shouldn’t be allowed casually in public.
I mean, you can say it was a bad choice to go, period, but choosing to be armed while he was there was absolutely correct, both in a vacuum and in hindsight. Rosenbaum likely would have killed or at least injured Rittenhouse if the same sequence of events went down, except with him being unarmed.
He was obviously, visibly armed with a long rifle the entire time he was there, but no one thought anything of it. He was walking around for hours doing his thing and nobody was freaking out. The first person TO freak on him, did so for a reason completely unrelated to him being armed, and it’s only that altercation that even got the other two attackers’ attention on him at all.
No. Rosenbaum, the catalyst for all this, was absolutely NOT “endangered and forced into action” nor had any reason to be in fear of his life, just because someone was armed in his vicinity, in a state where open carry is legal.
Rosenbaum was the aggressor, and he had zero justification for his aggression.
Rittenhouse was not a counter protestor. He did zero counter protesting. He was even handing out water bottles to, and performing basic first aid on request (he was walking around yelling “medic! friendly!” to let others know he was available for such), for protesters.
Despite how you would feel, you must contend with the fact that no one freaked out when Rittenhouse arrived, nor did they while he was walking around offering his ‘services’, even though he was very obviously armed with a long rifle the entire time. Given the fact that it’s a legal open carry state, I’m not surprised by this, but the fact is that his presence while armed was perceived as entirely mundane right up until Rosenbaum flipped out on him (again, for a reason that also had nothing to do with his gun).
I think anyone who claims open carrying a firearm doesn’t escalate a situation is either incredibly unaware, or intentionally ignorant. There’s a reason they teach about this sort of dynamic in policing and self-defense classes.
Rittenhouse defended himself reasonably, but absolutely escalated the situation by bringing a firearm to defend a local business, per his own testimony.
It’s much more likely that you just don’t live in an open carry state, so you’re projecting how you’d feel about it if it happened where you do live, unable to empathize with the fact that it’s much more mundane to someone who does live in a state with legal open carry.
How do you contend with the fact that nobody reacted negatively to his arrival, nor his presence over several hours? That’s the fact that your contention cannot escape. You can claim it’s inherently provocative/aggressive/escalatory to be armed there that day, but how do you explain that no one actually there gave a shit about it? No one ran screaming from him when he showed up. He was walking around giving first aid, handing out water bottles, extinguishing fires, all while obviously armed with a long rifle, and literally no one cared.
Even when someone DID react negatively to him, that reaction had literally NOTHING to do with his gun! Rosenbaum was pissed that the dumpster fire he set got put out!
Your claim that his being armed, in and of itself, escalated the situation, simply does not hold any water.
Solid assumptions! I’m actually a former competition shooter at the state level, but never national. I personally own an AR-15 that I use at the range sometimes.
I won’t be replying anymore, because you’re clearly as blinded by ideology as the people you rail so hard against. I hope you’re a teenager that will one day look back on this mentality with a sense of personal growth.
Have a good one.
Shooting competitively is completely irrelevant to whether it’s mundane to see someone in a public place armed with a rifle, in public.
The fact that you still can’t get around, is that nobody in that area on that day in Kenosha was intimidated by Rittenhouse being there armed, neither on arrival, nor as he walked around with the gun on him the whole time. The fact that your REFUSE to even address this fact and instead try to evade it over and over proves that you know it’s a brick wall your assumption runs smack into.
Stop being such an intellectual coward, and admit your argument holds no water.
Bullshit, I’m the one stating facts and you’re the one insisting your baseless assumptions are true, even when there is evidence directly contradicting it.
You’re just desperately trying to rationalize your unwillingness to confront reality honestly, by constantly repeating the same nonsense.
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Face facts.