[Bumped to discuss resulting legal actions] Elementary school shooting in Connecticut. (Edit/Update - 26 reported killed, many of them children)

Truly heartbreaking stuff
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…..While Mr Jones profited financially from spreading his lies, the victims’ families were subjected to years of in-person and online harassment and threats from people spurred on by the conspiracy theorist’s rants.

In heartbreaking courtroom testimony, Erica Lafferty, the daughter of Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung who was killed in the massacre, told the court that she had been forced to move five times to try to get away from the threats and harassment.

“For 27 years of my life, that woman was my best friend,” Ms Lafferty said of her mother.

“For people to tell me she didn’t exist, how do you just let that happen?”

Mark Barden, father of murdered six-year-old Daniel, revealed how his daughter discovered letters sent to the family saying that they had urinated on her little brother’s grave and wanted to dig up his body.

Some of the most harrowing testimony came from Robbie Parker, who revealed how the far-right conspiracy theorist left him feeling like he “failed” his six-year-old daughter Emilie who was murdered in the mass shooting.

One day after the massacre, the devastated father gave a brief speech to the media where he paid tribute to his little girl who “made the world a better place” for being in it.

Unbeknownst to Mr Parker at the time, it was the first time any of the victims’ family members had spoken out publicly following their deaths.

As he walked up to the microphone, he briefly smiled – something that instantly made him a target of the conspiracy theorist’s lies.

Over the following years, Mr Jones repeatedly mocked Mr Parker’s heartbreaking moment of intense grief on his far-right conspiracy show and branded him “a soap opera actor”.

Choking back tears, Mr Parker told jurors how he believed he was “failing” Emilie’s memory as Mr Jones lies continued to spread lies about her.

“I already felt like I failed Emilie as a dad when she was alive because we sent her to school,” Mr Parker testified.

“And I was especially starting to feel like I was failing her in her death because of what people were saying about her and what they were saying about me trying to remember her.”……..

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...s-sandy-hook-defamation-verdict-b2197893.html