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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsExclusive: NRA Official Sought Sandy Hook Hoaxer To Question Parkland Shooting, Emails Show
Juanita Jean's son, Mark Bankston, is suing Alex Jones here in Texas. It seems that the NRA is in effect encouraging the Jones' idiots to believe the Parkland shooting was a hoax. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/exclusive-nra-sandy-hook-hoaxer-parkland-shooting_n_5c8aa54de4b03e83bdbe59eb
NRA officer Mark Richardson emailed Wolfgang Halbig, a noted harasser of parents of Sandy Hook Elementary School victims, to float a conspiracy theory about the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people were killed last year.
Just like [Sandy Hook], there is so much more to this story, Richardson said in an email dated Feb. 15, 2018 ― just one day after the Florida shooting. Twenty children and six adults were killed during the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. [The Parkland shooter] was not alone. The email was sent from his official NRA email address. ...
The email exchange between Richardson and Halbig emerged as part of a recent discovery process for an ongoing lawsuit between Infowars host Alex Jones and Sandy Hook parent Scarlett Lewis, who is suing Jones and his show for intentional infliction of emotional distress. For years, he has falsely called the victims of the tragedy crisis actors, emboldening dangerous conspiracy theorists to harass people who lost their children in the tragic shooting.
This is one of the assholes who was harassing the parent who just committed suicide
Kurt V.
(5,624 posts)this is disgusting
Gothmog
(143,999 posts)From the Huff post article cited above
His discussions on Infowars have included the sickening theory that 6-year-old Avielle Richman didnt die in the Sandy Hook shooting. In a 2018 email to Richardson, Halbig mentions the girls name in capital letters in the subject line.
Her father, Jeremey Richman, died Monday by suspected suicide. And in the past two weeks, two Parkland shooting survivors also died by suspected suicide.
Halbig is not alone in encouraging the harassment of Sandy Hook families. A legion of trolls inspired by Infowars and other outlets have made tangible death threats against many Sandy Hook parents. Lucy Richards of Florida was sentenced to five months in prison in 2017 after she sent Sandy Hook father Leonard Pozner a voicemail that warned, You gonna die. Death is coming to you. Pozner is suing Jones for defamation.
malaise
(267,800 posts)I can't take much more of this
Gothmog
(143,999 posts)malaise
(267,800 posts)And then their remedy is to sell more weapons and arm the teachers.
If it didn't fucking happen, why arm the teachers?
Damn they disgust me
ck4829
(34,974 posts)Gothmog
(143,999 posts)Alex Jones is lower than pond scum https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2019/03/26/alex-jones-pushing-conspiracy-theories-about-death-sandy-hook-father-who-was-suing-him/223246?fbclid=IwAR31Kat4OqD9jIaj2cSRB-PSys0PQIXSST_KkaGY6aqiOI5MFKamuvkFXi8
Richman was found dead at his office building in Newtown the morning of March 25 in what police say is an apparent suicide. He was part of a group of Sandy Hook families who are suing Jones for defamation, arguing that false claims Jones made about the 2012 shooting spurred harassment and threats against them.
Following the mass shooting, Jones definitively and repeatedly said that the violence at Sandy Hook, which left 20 students and six educators dead, didnt happen. After his public profile was raised, and particularly after a December 2015 appearance by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump on his show, Jones has sought to backtrack and spin his past comments in some cases while advancing new Sandy Hook conspiracy theories in others.
Jones commented on Richmans death during his March 25 broadcast, repeatedly suggesting that Richman did not die by suicide. He also claimed that the timing of Richmans death was suspicious and meant to distract from the release of the summary of special counsel Robert Muellers report on possible Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Complaining that Richmans reported suicide means he wont get a fair trial in the defamation lawsuits he is facing, Jones questioned the known facts of Richmans death saying, I mean, is there going to be a police investigation? Are they going to look at the surveillance cameras? I mean, what happened to this guy? This whole Sandy Hook thing is, like, really getting even crazier.
Crunchy Frog
(26,548 posts)Does anyone honestly believe he's above putting out a hit on someone?
EleanorR
(2,374 posts)These are the followers they cultivate and need.
GusBob
(7,286 posts)What is the motivation?
I hope the lawsuit finds an answer to this
Crunchy Frog
(26,548 posts)Gothmog
(143,999 posts)Link to tweet
Given practical support and visibility by Mr. Jones, Mr. Halbig hounded families of the victims and other residents of Newtown, and promoted a baseless tale that Avielle Richman, a first grader killed at Sandy Hook, was still alive.
The deposition and its details about Mr. Joness operation and his interactions with Mr. Halbig was made public on Friday, days after Avielle Richmans father, Jeremy Richman, killed himself in Newtowns Edmond Town Hall, where Avielle Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to brain science that the family established in their daughters name, had an office.....
The heightened profile Mr. Halbig gained through Mr. Jones and his skepticism about mass shootings drew him into the orbit of the National Rifle Association, as well. On Feb. 15, 2018, the day after 17 people died in a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., Mark Richardson, a program officer for the N.R.A., emailed Mr. Halbig to stir doubts about the facts of the shooting, according to a document in the Texas lawsuit that was first reported by HuffPost.
Referring to Sandy Hook, Mr. Richardson wrote to Mr. Halbig that there is so much more to this story, wrongly speculating in the message that the Parkland shooter was not alone.
Gothmog
(143,999 posts)Link to tweet
Jeremy Richman, her father, a neuroscientist who had founded the Avielle Foundation in his daughters name, died in an apparent suicide on Monday, following the apparent suicides of two teenage survivors of the Parkland shooting.
The deaths returned the nations focus to the two communities, which have been besieged by online abuse and threats stoked by conspiracy theories that depict the victims as crisis actors.
But the correspondence shows how an officer of the NRA saw these theories as potentially useful to his cause. The inquiry, sent from Richardsons work email, was evidence of the curious handshake in which the gun-rights organization has found itself with the most extreme purveyors of Internet falsehoods.
The NRA literally drives conspiracies about school shootings to fear monger gun owners to buy more guns, David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland shooting who has become a prominent advocate for gun control, wrote on Twitter.
Gothmog
(143,999 posts)Poor Mark was nervous the first 30 minutes of the depo but settled down and have fun
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/we-got-alex-jones-deposition-video-it-was-a-predictable-disaster_n_5c9d06fae4b03218ee1ca133
Like I told you, most of this stuff I cant even remember, Jones says about the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting at one point in a video deposition released to HuffPost.
The deposition, which was released publicly on Friday, shows Jones in the hot seat as he attempts to explain his reasoning for spending years falsely claiming that the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut ― which left 20 children and six adults dead ― was a hoax. He is being sued by nine family members of loved ones who died in the shooting, including Scarlett Lewis, who is suing Jones for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Lewis is represented by Mark Bankston of the Texas law firm Farrar & Ball. HuffPost has also included the full transcript.
struggle4progress
(118,034 posts)Gothmog
(143,999 posts)Link to tweet
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