Robbie Parker, the father of 6-year-old Emilie Parker who was killed during the Sandy Hook shooting, said he was proud to stand among his fellow plaintiffs who got on the stand and told the truth.
“Everybody that took the stand told the truth, except for one. The one who proclaims that that’s what he does,” Parker said, referring to Alex Jones.
He credited his lawyers with helping to give him “the strength to finally find my voice and to fight and to stand up to what had been happening to me for so long.”
Speaking to the media after the verdict, Parker continued: “I let my voice be taken away from me and my power be taken away from me. At the expense of my daughter and at the expense of my family. So I have to thank them for helping me get the strength. And the families that I’ve been associated with for 10 years through this tragedy are the most beautiful people you’ll ever encounter, and their children and their moms and their wives are the most beautiful people you could ever get to know.”
“All I can really say is that I’m just proud that what we were able to accomplish is just to simply tell the truth and it shouldn’t be this hard, and it shouldn’t be this scary.”
Parker thanked the jury, not only because of the verdict, “but for what they had to endure, what they had to listen to.”
The jury awarded Parker $120,000,000 in compensatory damages in the case.
Some background: In emotional testimony, Parker recounted the violent threats and harassment he and his family have suffered in the years after Jones called him a crisis actor.
The day after Emilie was murdered in the mass shooting, Parker gave a statement to the press. Hours later, Jones was on his InfoWars show describing Parker as a crisis actor to his audience of millions.
Later that night, unable to sleep, Parker said he saw the start of a deluge of hateful messages about the press conference on the Facebook memorial page for Emilie. Parker said he removed Emilie’s Facebook memorial page weeks after the shooting because the harassment was too much to control.
“I felt like I couldn’t protect Emilie’s name, or her memory anymore so I had to get rid of it,” Parker said through tears.
