Photo courtesy of AV Club.
Summary: Two lawsuits were filed against Alex Jones by Sandy Hook families who said he defamed them.
Parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook massacre are suing a popular right-wing personality for claiming that the shooting was a hoax created by opponents of the Second Amendment. The lawsuit was filed Tuesday, according to the New York Times.
In 2012, a gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and murdered numerous school children and staff. Following the tragedy, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones claimed that the shooting never happened and was a “hoax” created by anti-gun advocates.
Jones’ outrageous claims devastated the families of the slain victims, 20 children and six adults; and on Tuesday, three parents came together to sue Jones for defamation.
On Jones’ popular right-wing website Infowars, he questioned the validity of the Sandy Hook shooting, and he uses news reports or video clips out of context or that are wrong as evidence to his false theory.
Jones’ claims prompted other conspiracy theorists to attack many Sandy Hook victims’ parents, and these attackers called them crisis actors who were a part of a giant scheme to get stricter gun control laws passed in this country. This type of tactic has been used recently against the teenage gun control activists who survived the Parkland, Florida shooting on February 14.
Two lawsuits were filed on Tuesday against Jones for defamation. One was filed by Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, and the second was filed by Neil Helsin. Both parties had 6-year-old sons who were murdered at Sandy Hook.
Jones had personally attacked the parents of the victims, and the lawsuits cite examples. For instance, on a radio segment called “Sandy Hook Vampires Exposed” which aired on April 22, 2017, Jones said that an interview De Le Rosa conducted with Anderson Cooper was staged in a studio when in reality there was a glitch in the footage because of a video distortion.
“When he turns, his nose disappears repeatedly because the green screen isn’t set right,” Jones said.
The lawsuits were filed in Austin, Texas where Jones lives and operates Infowars. The two lawsuits are seeking $1 million in damages, each. Both parties are represented by Mark D. Bankston.
“The statements were a continuation and elaboration of a yearslong campaign to falsely attack the honesty of the Sandy Hook parents, casting them as participants in a ghastly conspiracy and cover-up,” Tuesday’s lawsuits stated.
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