Sandy Hook Parents Sue Alex Jones for Defamation

Authored by nytimes.com and submitted by singularfate
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Three parents whose children were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 filed a defamation lawsuit on Tuesday against Alex Jones, the right-wing conspiracy theorist who has long claimed the shooting was “completely fake” and a “giant hoax” perpetrated by opponents of the Second Amendment.

Mr. Jones, the popular radio show host who also operates the conspiracy theory website Infowars, has questioned for years whether 20 children and six adults died in the school massacre in Newtown, Conn. To bolster his false claims, he often cites news reports and video clips from the hours after the shooting that turned out to be incomplete or based on wrong information.

Soon after they buried their children, many Sandy Hook parents started to come under fierce attack by conspiracy theorists who have said they are actors in an elaborate scheme to enact stricter gun control laws. The fringe theories still thrive in small forums online but have reached a far greater audience through Mr. Jones, the most vocal propagator.

The two lawsuits filed on Tuesday represent the first civil action taken by parents accusing Mr. Jones of defamation. One was filed by Leonard Pozner and his former wife, Veronique De La Rosa, and the other was filed by Neil Heslin. Their sons, Noah Pozner and Jesse Heslin, both 6, were killed at Sandy Hook.

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The suits focus on comments made by Mr. Jones in the past year. In a segment on his radio show called “Sandy Hook Vampires Exposed,” which aired on April 22, 2017, Mr. Jones highlighted an interview that Ms. De La Rosa did with Anderson Cooper of CNN after the shooting. While they are standing outside a downtown Newtown building, Mr. Cooper turns his head to face her.

During that quick head movement, Mr. Cooper’s nose seems to disappear — evidence, Mr. Jones said, that the interview with Ms. De La Rosa was conducted in a studio. In reality, the glitch is known as a compression artifact, a distortion that is common in video encoding.

TKay421 on April 17th, 2018 at 15:25 UTC »

I can't imagine what these people have gone through and still go though on a daily basis. As a parent I really can't imagine it. It's a cliche statement but it's true, I simply cannot process what it would be like to have my child murdered in her elementary school, where she is sitting this very moment as I type, learning about sharks in her kindergarten classroom (it's shark week for the kidos).

To lose her in the way, to have her little 48 pound body riddled with bullets from a gun welded by a madman, to bury her and attempt to pick up the pieces of my life and move on...only to have this monster spew is hate, his conspiracies, his complete, abject, unashamed ignorance at the expense of my dead little girl, and all for what? Money. That's why he does it, for money. He doesn't care about the issues, about guns, the environment, or healthcare...he cares about money, that's it.

To have him spew that shit about my dead daughter for his monetary gain and for absolutely no other reason...I literally cannot process that level of evil.

TooShiftyForYou on April 17th, 2018 at 14:52 UTC »

Attorney: "Your Honor, my client is obviously playing a character, no one could actually be this ridiculous."

Alex Jones: "I'd like to fire my lawyer, please."

beendoingit7 on April 17th, 2018 at 14:37 UTC »

“YOUR LITTLE SON JOHNNY WAS A FALSE FLAG...YOU MOVED TO CONNECTICUT BC THE GOVT PAID YOU OFF SO THEY COULD START TO TAKE AWAY OUR GUNS”- Alex Jones

Wendy’s Cashier: Sir, can you please stop yelling and pull up to the second window.