Sandy Hook Families Sue Alex Jones For Defamation Over ‘Sustained Attack’ For Years
Alex Jones, the firebrand Infowars radio host who has for years claimed that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax, has been sued by the families of six of the victims and one of the FBI agents who initially responded at the scene, Yahoo News is reporting.
On December 14, 2012, a disturbed gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and opened fire, leaving 20 children and six adults dead.
Jones has for years said that the whole thing was a hoax, calling it a “false flag” attack that was staged in order to stir up anti-gun sentiment and give the government a reason to enact gun control and confiscate guns.
As evidence, Jones claimed that the same children – all “crisis actors” he says – were cycled in an out of the school. Adults filmed at the scene were crisis actors, he claims, and no helicopters were seen in any news footage of that day – something that he expected would happen if the attack had been real.
“Yeah, so, Sandy Hook is a synthetic completely fake with actors, in my view, manufactured.”
According to Bloomberg, Jones produced two videos (“Sandy Hook was a total false flag” and “Sandy Hook shooting exposed as a fraud”) and an article (“College professor says ‘crisis actors’ may have played part if Sandy Hook was indeed a hoax”) and hosted them on his website.
Sandy Hook families sue Alex Jones for defamation https://t.co/8ylzs5nmAU pic.twitter.com/sAUErG9ZH8
— The Hill (@thehill) May 23, 2018
The whole thing was a ploy to drive viewers to Jones’ website in order to sell more precious metals, “male enhancement” elixirs, and radiation-defeating iodine tablets, claims the lawsuit.
“They deliberately stoke social anxiety and political discord in their listeners, because distrust in government and cultural tribalism motivate those listeners to buy their products. Jones exploits his audience by selling them products in line with the paranoid worldview he promotes.”
What’s more, say the families, they’ve been “continually harassed” by other individuals because of Jones’ claims.
The six individuals who sued Jones today are not the first Sandy Hook victims’ families to Sue the host. As NPR News reported at the time, two other families sued Jones in April for the same reason.
In April, Jones commented on the first round of lawsuits on his show, claiming that he was the one who had been defamed.
“You’re allowed to question things in America.”
Meanwhile, a third lawsuit is also bedeviling Jones. A former foreign service officer says that he received death threats from Jones’ listeners after posting a video of a woman being struck by a car during last year’s Charlottesville, Virginia, protests.
