SANDY HOOK shooting - 2012

The Sandy Hook school shooting was the 4th deadliest mass shooting in United States history. On December 14, 2012, there was a devastating school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. A 20-year-old named Adam Lanza killed 20 children and 6 adults at the school, while also killing his mother earlier that day. Adam shot himself on the scene as officials arrived.

This event is also known as a kickstarter for gun control in society. With this political topic associated with such a traumatic event including many families who lost loved ones, people began to stir up conspiracies that caused complex issues. An American radio host named Alex Jones decided to create a narrative that the event was staged and that it was a hoax.. all to increase gun control. While this issue is very real for the people dealing with the loss of a family member, both children, and adults, Alex Jones encouraged his following on the media that his conspiracy was right and even convinced people to harass the victim’s families. The families are already dealing with a traumatic loss, but Jones decides to add the pressure of harassment and false claims on top of this pain and proceed to call it “free speech”. This man is described as the most “prolific conspiracy theorist in contemporary America”

The families being slandered and harassed on Alex Jones’s conspiracies have decided to fight back and go forward with many lawsuits. Recently, parents Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa who lost their son Noah in the shooting won a lawsuit against Jones for defamation of character. There are many other unfinished cases regarding other families in the fight against Alex Jones.