NRA official contacted Alex Jones colleague to promote Parkland school conspiracy theory

Alex Jones at his deposition earlier in the week. Screen capture by HuffPost via YouTube video

If there’s one thing Alex Jones is known for, it’s spreading harmful and cruel conspiracy theories when mass shootings occur. That’s coming back to bite him and he’s being sued by the parent of a child killed in the mass shooting that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut in December 2012, The Huffington Post reports.

Now, however, comes news of another conspiracy theory, this time propagated by an employee of the National Rifle Association, just one day after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Highschool in Parkland, Florida last February. And this time the conspiracy theorist wasn’t Jones.

It was Wolfgang Halbig, who’s also notorious for harassing parents of Sandy Hook Elementary victims. Halbig was contacted by NRA employee Mark Richardson and the two speculated about whether the gunman acted alone, The Guardian reports.

“Just like [Sandy Hook], there is so much more to this story,” Richardson told Halbig. “He was not alone.”

But that wasn’t all Alternet reports.

“Concerning what happened in Florida yesterday, I have been asking the question, and no one else seems to be asking it,” Richardson wrote. “How is it that [Nikolas] Cruz was able to gain access to a secured facility while in possession of a rifle, multiple magazines, smoke grenades, and a gas mask?”

On February 15, 2018, the day after the shooting Infowars published an article with a headline that read “Video: Second Shooter Reported In Florida Massacre.” It’s not clear if Halbig is the author.

And in an email to The Huffington Post’s Sebastian Murdock, Richardson revealed he had indeed contacted Halbig on that February day, having also written:

“Since an individual who was prohibited from the school was aloud [sic] to pass through the front doors with a backpack containing a long gun, it is a legitimate question to ask if he had assistance concerning access to the school.”

Halbig has been accused of harassing parents of kids who lost their lives in the Sandy Hook shooting, where he, Jones, and other conspiracy theorists have alleged grieving family members are “crisis actors,” and that mass shootings are faked in order to push gun control. Shooting victims’ families are continually harassed — sometimes in ways that are frighteningly direct. In one case, a Florida woman was sentenced to five months in prison for sending the father of a Sandy Hook victim threatening messages that his death would happen “real soon.”

And with every mass shooting, new theories mushroom and family members are targeted both online and in-person.

Details of the correspondence between Richardson, who used his official NRA email to correspond with Halbig, were revealed as part of the defamation lawsuit brought by Sandy Hook parents against Jones. And Halbig himself has contributed to Infowars in the past. What’s even more damning is that on the day Richardson contacted Halbig, the site published a post alleging that a second shooter was implicated in the Parkland shooting, The Huffington Post reported. But it’s not clear if Halbig was the author.

Jones faces several more lawsuits from these grieving parents. Last April, Mark Bankston, who represents some of the parents whose children died in the Sandy Hook shooting told The Huffington Post about the hell this man has put them through.

“Even after these folks had to experience this trauma for the next five years they were tormented by Alex Jones with vicious lies about them,” Bankston said. “And these lies were meant to convince his audience that the Sandy Hook parents are frauds and have perpetrated a sinister lie on the American people.”

Jones and his obnoxious site have been banned across social media platforms time and again but somehow his fear-mongering and hate persist, fanning the flames of more and more conspiracy theories. It is to be hoped that the grieving parents who lost so much when their children’s lives were cruelly cut short will triumph over Jones’ often hysterical rantings and paranoia.

Below is a short video of Jones at his deposition.

Featured image by HuffPost via YouTube video