Alex Jones trial updates: Sandy Hook dad recalls stranger’s vile verbal assault after 4 years of Infowars lies
The third week of Jones’ defamation trial against Sandy Hook families has concluded
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Alex Jones’s second defamation trial over his “hoax” lies about the Sandy Hook massacre has finished its third week in Connecticut court.
The jury heard emotional testimony from family members after a tense conclusion to the previous week’s proceedings, when the Infowars host delayed his return to the witness box following a rant at reporters outside the courthouse.
His own defence attorneys waived their right to cross-examine him, and he is now expected to resume testimony as a witness for his defence next week.
In his testimony, Jones shouted that he was “done apologising” for his egregious claims about the shooting under questioning from the plaintiffs’ lawyer while families of victims broke down in tears in the courtroom.
On Thursday morning, Sandy Hook father Robbie Parker, who found himself the target of hoax accusations the day after his daughter was murdered, concluded his emotional testimony, recalling a vile verbal assault from a conspiracy theorist, four years after the tragedy. He noted that these occurrences corresponded to when Jones would broadcast his lies.
On the flight home, Mr Parker saw Alex Jones appear on Piers Morgan’s CNN show in late January 2013.
The jury is shown a clip from Infowars in which Jones says the press conference that Mr Parker gave was staged and his behaviour was odd.
The same clip is then played on a split screen with Jones’s deposition on the other side as he too watches it. Jones smirks as he watches it and attorney Chris Mattei asks Mr Parker whether he saw the Infowars host do that.
“I saw that,” says Mr Parker.
Mr Parker says his reaction to the experience was not to engage with a bully and to ignore the harassment and that these people would “go back to looking for Bigfoot”.
The Facebook memorial page became increasingly overwhelmed with conspiracy theorists and by mid-January he had to shut the page down.
“I felt like I couldn’t protect Emily’s name or memory anymore, so I had to get rid of it.”
Mr Parker said he was constantly reporting abusive content from Facebook and YouTube, begging to have comments taken down: “I was pleading and pleading for their help.”
He sounds very emotional describing how he felt responsible for the harassment that so many who had lost children at Sandy Hook were experiencing because of his press conference, though he says he had their support.
He knows that logically it is not his fault but nevertheless, he wanted anonymity and decided to move across the country to the Pacific northwest.
The Parkers moved in early 2014 and still Alex Jones kept pushing the conspiracy. The court is shown footage from Infowars from March 2014.
Even after they moved the Sandy Hook hoaxers followed, with one even posting a YouTube video about the sale of their house in Connecticut, their new address, and other details.
During this time Alissa Parker deteriorated emotionally and had to step back from the foundation she had started with another victim’s mother.
More videos followed on Infowars, including Wolfgang Halbig saying no children had died at Sandy Hook. Another deluge of assault on the family occurred.
Mr Parker says he knew whenever Alex Jones said anything about them because another wave of harassment would hit them.
Watch: Alex Jones appears on Piers Morgan’s CNN show in January 2013
Mr Parker says that whenever he looked up an unrelated YouTube video for his daughter he would see his own face in Sandy Hook videos as a suggested clip.
Another video is played to the court in which Infowars director Rob Dew also claims Mr Parker is an actor.
He compares the parents to actors in “Our Town” who had prepared for their roles before going on stage and mocks his crying.
Mr Parker says he began to hate the video of himself.
Mr Parker recounts a particularly harrowing verbal confrontation with a Sandy Hook hoax conspiracy theorist.
It was 3,000 miles away and four years after Sandy Hook in the fall of 2016 when he was confronted in the street in Seattle by a man who recognised him.
Mr Parker apologised to the judge for the language he was about to use.
When he introduced himself the man angrily confronted him: “How do you f***ing sleep at night you f***ing piece of s***?”
He continued to harass him, shouting: “How much money did you get from the government”.
Mr Parker recalled the man followed him calling him a “son of a bitch” and screaming that his daughter was still alive.
Eventually, he responded to the man: “How dare you, you’re talking about my daughter. She was killed, who do you think you are? How do you sleep at night? I used some colorful language as well.”
He remembers: “We went at it, we were yelling at each other. That circle of people around us got wider and wider.”
Finally he was able to walk away from the man to get back to his family.
“I had to be OK,” he says. “I wanted to protect them so bad.”
The court is shown another Infowars video of Alex Jones yet again calling him an actor.
That video was broadcast in November 2016, corresponding to the time when the confrontation occurred.
In 2018, Mr Parker was put in touch with the parents of a victim of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
He saw himself reflected back in their experience as they grieved the death of their child.
“Grief should be sacred, something that transforms you as a person and makes you better.”
The parents said people were saying things about them from a press conference they gave and they were dealing with the same allegations of being “crisis actors” and that the massacre was a “false flag” operation and fake.
Alex Jones said in his deposition that he had said the Parkland victims were actors.
“It’s atrocious to have to go through all this when all you want to do is grieve,” Mr Parker tells the court.
He says he knew then that he could fight this as he had dealt with it longer than they had and knew more about it than they did. He says that the Parkland family should not have to go through what he had.
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