Family members of Sandy Hook shooting victims are furious after a retired baseball star described the massacre as a “hoax.”
Chipper Jones, the former Atlanta Braves third baseman, posted Friday on Twitter that the FBI had confirmed the shootings never actually happened.
“So the FBI comes out and confirms that Sandy Hook is a hoax!” Jones tweeted. “Where is the outrage? What else are we being lied to about? Waco? JFK? Pfff…”
The post was in apparent reference to a September report by Alex Jones' Infowars website that speculated the shootings were “false flag” because the deaths of 20 children and six school employees had not been listed on an FBI crime data report.
The FBI report apparently reflected the fact that Connecticut State Police managed the crime scene, so those deaths are listed in state, not federal, crime records.
Jones quickly deleted the post after he was deluged with criticism, and he then posted a two-part apology.
“My apologies for my Sandy Hook tweet (yesterday),” he posted Saturday. “I had heard something from someone which I thought to be credible and tweeted w/out researching.”
“It was irresponsible of me to do that and will not happen again,” he continued. “Please accept my heartfelt apology to those who were hurt or offended.”
Some victims’ relatives said the apology wasn’t enough, saying the post had triggered another wave of abuse by Sandy Hook “truthers.”
“For more than two years now, my family and the other families of Sandy Hook have been dealing with conspiracy theorists,” said Cristina Hassinger, whose mother was principal of the elementary school and died while trying to protect her students.
She said the conspiracy theorists harass her and other family members of slain educators and children, accusing them of taking part in the alleged hoax.
“I know that he apologized, but it’s not enough,” Hassinger said. “We were met with a brand new onslaught of Sandy Hook hoax harassment. When you're dealing with these people, and they see that blue check mark (which verifies Twitter accounts of celebrities) that’s on their side, it starts all over again.”
She offered to prove to Jones that her mother had been killed along with 25 others in the December 2012 massacre.
“Come for dinner. You can meet my grandmother-less children and I'll show you my mom's clothes riddled with bullet holes,” she posted on Twitter.
