'Truth vs. Alex Jones': Documentary seeks justice for outrageous claims of Sandy Hook hoax

The pain of the parents who lost their children, first grade students at Sandy Hook Elementary School, still feels fresh nearly 12 years after the shooting.

In a new documentary about the tragedy, Mark Barden says that as he and his son Daniel cuddled on the couch that fateful morning, Daniel noted shining Christmas tree lights bouncing off a window that showed the glory of the sun meeting the sky. Mark, looking to capture the moment, grabbed his camera.

“I have a picture of that sunrise that morning with the Christmas tree lights reflecting in the window,” he says, “and I really wish I’d turned the camera around and taken a picture of" Daniel.

Other parents of the young victims – all just 6 or 7 years old – join Mark for HBO’s heartbreaking documentary “The Truth vs. Alex Jones” (now streaming on Max). The project revisits the events of Dec. 14, 2012, when a gunman walked into the Newtown, Connecticut, school and killed 20 students and six educators – and the unimaginable repercussions of Infowars host Alex Jones deeming the tragedy “staged” just hours later on his program.

“I said, ‘They are going to come after our guns, look for mass shootings,’” Jones said. “And then magically, it happens.”

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Director Dan Reed (“Leaving Neverland,” “Terror in Mumbai”) failed to enlist Jones' participation in the documentary, the filmmaker tells USA TODAY. “I was very keen to get him in front of the camera,” Reed says. “He did not want to be in the ring with me and not on his own terms.”

Reed pins the spread of the outrageously offensive conspiracy mostly on Jones “because he has such a powerful megaphone.”

A 2022 poll conducted by The Economist and YouGov found that only 9% of Americans believe Jones can be trusted. But just 67% of those surveyed could say with certainty that they thought the statement “Mass shootings have been faked by groups trying to promote stricter gun control laws” was “definitely or probably false.” An additional 18% thought the statement was "definitely or probably true,” and 15% were “not sure.”

On March 13, CNN reported that NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers once claimed to CNN anchor Pamela Brown that Sandy Hook was orchestrated by the government. The next day, Rodgers took to X, formerly known as Twitter, in his defense, writing “I am not and have never been of the opinion that the events did not take place.”

Jones accused the grieving Sandy Hook parents of being actors. They received threats they'd be murdered or raped. To put a stop to the lies, the families filed defamation suits.

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Jackie Barden testified in 2022 that a letter sent to her home said its author had visited Daniel’s grave and urinated on it “because they didn’t believe that Daniel was buried.” Barden recalled another letter said “they were going to dig Daniel’s grave up because he wasn’t there, to prove it.”

The documentary also claims Jones repeatedly voiced his controversial opinions about Sandy Hook because those segments drove traffic to Infowars.com and spiked sales of dietary supplements, apparel and “survival gear.”

In essence, Reed says, he used the grieving families as "fodder for his business model of, 'Come for the lies and stay for the products. He really discovered a winning formula there, and that's what made him repeat these lies over and over again for 10 years, until the parents put a stop to him by taking him to court.”

The Associated Press previously reported that Jones’ online store “made more than $165 million between 2015 and 2018.”

Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, the parents of Sandy Hook victim Jesse Lewis, filed a defamation suit against Jones and were awarded nearly $50 million in damages. In another case, 15 plaintiffs were awarded damages totaling more than $1.4 billion.

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Scarlett Lewis says in a statement that Jones “gave people an alternate reality, one that was easier to stomach than the violent murder of children. More people believing the shooting never happened means fewer people addressing solutions to the violence. That is the real evil of what Alex did.”

Reed feels strongly that his documentary offers a warning that applies to the current political climate, in which former president Donald Trump, twice impeached, secured the required delegates to be the presumptive Republican nominee.

“It's about how if you lie with enough charisma, and you're funny enough, and you're a big enough personality, and you come across as authentic even if you're not because you're trying to sell the product, that people don't want to believe that you're lying because you're entertaining them,” he says. “Maybe your lies are like candy. They're sweet lies. They're lies that you want to consume, if you're in a certain place, maybe not too happy. Maybe looking for reasons, looking for guidance.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Alex Jones' Sandy Hook shootings hoax explored in HBO documentary