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(upbeat music) - Hi everyone.

This is Steve Adubato, more importantly, entire half hour program dedicated to breaking down, making sense of a compelling, powerful, important book.

The author is Robbie Parker.

He's the author of A Father's Fight: Taking on Alex Jones and Reclaiming the Truth about Sandy Hook.

Robbie's also the father of Emily Parker, who was six years of age, one of many students who was killed on December the 14th, 2012.

We're actually taping this just a few days before the 12th anniversary of that horrific tragedy.

Robbie, thank you for joining us.

- Thank you, Steve.

Pleasure to be here.

- Most importantly, can you tell us about Emily?

- Oh my gosh.

No, I'd love to.

She was the most biddable child.

She was gregarious and loving.

She was a perfect older sister to Madeline and Samantha, her younger sisters.

She was a best friend to Alissa, my wife and her mom.

One of the things that, in writing the book and in talking to people, and I got to talk about Emily a lot lately, that I realized that I miss about her the most, is she had this tremendous ability to feel and share it with people, and she knew how to communicate what it was that she was feeling.

And at six years old, that was something, as her father, I didn't know how to do very well.

I didn't know how to understand what was going on inside of me and share that and give that to you.

And that was something that she did, and she shared her love with you, and that's the thing I miss about her the most, absolutely.

- Let me ask you to do this.

For those who may not know, too young to remember, confuse it with some other horrific school shootings, Remind folks what happened at Sandy Hook School, December 14th, 2012.

- Yeah, so what started out as just a very typical day for the rest of us, me waking up, getting ready to go to work, and having a wonderful conversation with my daughter before I ended up leaving the house that morning.

Right after school started, just a little after 9:30 in the morning, there was a gentleman, a young man, he was about 20 years old.

He lived in the community.

I would drive past the road that he lived on every single time I went through Sandy Hook.

He shot and killed his mother in the morning.

He drove to Sandy Hook.

He had multiple firearms, multiple semi-automatic rifles and shotguns and handguns.

He shot his way into the school and he ended up entering two classrooms.

And in those two classrooms, he ended up killing 20 children.

He killed six adults, principals and teachers, people who cared and loved those kids.

And then when he was done doing as much damage, I guess, as he felt like he was gonna be able to do, then he turned the gun on himself and killed himself.

- As horrific and unimaginable as the tragedy that Robbie just described, I'm gonna read a section from the book that goes further and talks about the nightmare just beginning 12 years ago.

"Grief requires constant exertion of energy, time, and focus.

This time, immediately after Emily's death felt sacrosanct, the time for our family to be focused on each other.

We lost someone so precious to all of us.

I wanted to hold everyone tight, protect them, and somehow let them know that everything would be okay.

However, because of conspiracy theorists, I was forced to direct my focus away from my family's grief.

I was disoriented and hurt by what I was seeing, and spent priceless hours trying to purge these hateful attacks from the internet and reporting them to social media companies.

This distraction siphoned energy and stole precious moments, moments that should have been sacred."

What was happening on social media first?

And then we'll talk about Alex Jones role in all this, please, Robbie.

- Yeah.

December 14th, 2012 was a Friday, so that was Friday morning.

What I'm describing there, the first instances where I encountered conspiracy theorists attacking us online, bashing Emily, defiling her name, threatening me and my family.

That was Sunday morning, the first time that I experienced that.

So in less than 48 hours from Emily being killed, we went from finding out that our daughter had died and was killed in the most horrific way, to me then receiving that type of bile language and threats and stuff lobbed at me and my family.

- How did you react to it?

- Like I described it, I mean, it was disorienting.

I mean, my world was already blown up, right?

I didn't know which way was which.

I didn't know where to go up for air, and so that's what I was already in the middle of, and to start seeing some kind of evil hatred just being spewed at us in the moment when you were just kicked down as far as you felt like you could go.

There's no way to describe how to respond to something like that.

It was just disorienting.

I was confused and it just felt evil.

I don't know how else to describe it.

- Was it totally unexpected?

- Yeah, of course.

I mean, who- - Who could imagine that?

- About anything that we described, could be expected, right?

I mean, yeah.

- So Alissa, your wife, you're dealing with this horrific loss of Emily, these other children, your daughter, and then you have two younger daughters, right?

What impact did it have on your wife?

- She shut down, which is amazing to me.

She's the strongest person.

She's always the one with a plan.

She always kind of knows what to do.

She's definitely, like in our family, like the alpha as far as like, I mean, the rubber meets the road, she's the one that you kind of turn to, right?

It broke her and it shut her down, and she wouldn't talk.

She just wanted to grieve and she just wanted to feel Emily, and that was being taken away from us.

- What did Alex Jones do and say about what happened at Sandy Hook and you and Emily?

- Yeah, so I had no idea who Alex Jones was.

I knew that there were conspiracy theorists out there, you know, saying that 9/11 didn't happen, those kinds of things.

That was so far off my radar.

On the day of the shooting, for the families that couldn't find their kids.

We were all taken into this conference room in a firehouse where we had to wait to get news that our child had died.

At the same time that Alissa and I were holding each other, literally holding each other, just grasping onto any type of hope that we could summon up.

Alex Jones was already on his syndicated radio program that was being broadcast to millions of people telling his listeners that this was fake, that this is something that the government manufactures.

They perform these mass shootings.

That it's not real because people are out to take away your guns.

And he was saying that before we even learned that Emily had been killed.

And so that was the message that his listeners were getting, which is why by Sunday morning, they were already primed to go after whoever it was that they felt "they" were, and that person ended up being me.

- Did he say you were an actor?

- Yeah, the term that he uses is a crisis actor.

- A crisis actor?

- Yeah, that just means that you're in cahoots with the government, that you've signed on to this ploy so that you're working with the government and you're pretending and you're acting to be a grief stricken father, or pretend that your daughter was killed.

And then multiple conspiracies will will branch off of that.

But yeah, so it's like a code term for conspiracists.

They know what you mean when you say a crisis actor.

- Sounds like a naive question, but I want to ask it anyway.

To what extent was there an effort by you and others who cared about these children deeply to just make 'em stop?

Was there any communication?

- Yeah, I mean a ton of work went into trying to, so a lot of this was happening on social media.

Back in 2012, everybody was on social media at that point, right?

And this was kinda like this huge tragedy that was happening.

And it was just like the perfect storm of just this time in history.

So our first steps were to go to the social media companies to try and get them to take this stuff down.

And we were just met with deafening silence.

There were family members, I didn't do this, but there specifically was one family member, a father, that reached out to Alex Jones personally and told them what he was doing was hurtful.

Told them that what he was saying were lies and he was spreading it.

Also met with deafening silence, actually just rebuked and kind of laughed at.

And so we did everything that we felt like we knew how to do to try and take any of this away from us.

And we didn't get help from anybody.

- A lawsuit happens, is that right?

Is there a lawsuit against Alex Jones?

I'm sorry.

- Yeah, it was finally filed in 2018.

You know, for a long time it was like I was in this position where I had to choose, like do I grieve?

Do I try and like be a good example to my children about how to grieve in a healthy way?

Do I learn how to grieve in a healthy way or do I protect them?

I just experienced what one person was capable of doing to another, and then I have these people coming after and lobbing threats at my family.

So I was always in this conundrum of having to choose between the two.

By 2018, it was obvious that they weren't going away.

By 2018, there were lots of other shootings, there were other school shootings.

The same thing was happening to those parents and those families.

And so a lot of things came together for us to be able to join this lawsuit.

And me personally, to join the lawsuit.

It wasn't something I wanted to do.

- What was it like being in the same room with Alex Jones and you know, I refer folks to YouTube or wherever you choose to see video, Alex Jones quote, "defending himself" from what he was saying.

What was it like?

It's a ridiculous question.

How could you even possibly even look at him and listen to him?

He didn't say... Did he admit that he was lying?

- So there were two lawsuits.

There were some families that sued him in Texas, and that trial happened first.

And in that trial, he came across very apologetic and very concerned, it felt like.

He didn't apologize, but he said that he now believes that these things happened.

He felt like he was playing devil's advocate, all these other excuses.

And that was what he said.

He goes, "I now believe that this is real."

In the Connecticut suit, which is the one that I was a part of, he did not come across that way.

He was very bombastic.

He was very in your face, he was very Alex Jonesy.

He wasn't gonna take accountability for anything.

And he demonstrated that loud and proud in the courtroom.

- You testified against him.

- Yeah.

- Describe it.

- That was what I was there for, right?

Like, what I really want people to understand is the impact that this has is, especially for me, I mean, I'll just speak to myself.

These people attacking me at those moments and I had to choose in how I was gonna protect my family.

I chose to stay quiet.

I didn't want to give them more fodder.

I didn't want to give them anything else.

I didn't want to make any more mistakes that they could use to come after me.

- What mistakes did you ever make in the first- Hold on, what mistake did you ever make in the first place?

- I gave a press conference the day after the shooting to talk about Emily.

And in that press conference, I smiled.

I laughed when I was approaching the podium, and that was their proof that I was acting and that I got into character because I could smile on one minute and cry in the next, when I was talking about my daughter.

- I'm sorry, apologize for interrupting.

Pick up your point.

So you're testifying.

He's right there in front of you.

He's right there in front of you.

- Yeah, by the time we were testifying, it was 10 years after the shooting.

And so for 10 years, that is how I was silent and I didn't say anything.

I lost my voice.

And when I lost my voice, I lost my power.

And so getting on the stand and being able to speak the truth about what happened, to reclaim who Emily was, and reclaim her memory and get my voice back and get my power back, that's what I was there to do.

And that was an amazing experience.

And I could feel that I literally was able to reclaim the things that I had either lost or that I had given up because of the choices that I had made and how I dealt with these things.

- Were you making eye contact with him?

- Did I what?

- Did you make eye contact with Alex Jones?

- I made lots of eye contact with Alex Jones.

He never made eye contact with me.

- He did not look at you?

- No, in fact, there was a point in the trial when he was testifying about that press conference, 'cause he, he used that clip of me smiling and laughing, and he would play that three seconds over and over and over on a show for years and years and years.

My lawyer asked him if he had ever watched the full statement, if he had ever watched what I had to say about Emily, and he hadn't.

So my lawyer played that clip for him in its entirety, and he couldn't even watch that.

There were TV monitors all over in the courtroom, and he had no place to look, so he just looked down because he couldn't face and see the truth.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- If you just picked up the conversation, we're talking with Robbie Parker, the author of an important book, A Father's Fight: Taking on Alex Jones and Reclaiming the Truth about Sandy Hook.

Talk to us about grief and mental health, Robbie.

- No, I'd love to.

I've spent a lot of time trying to figure those things out for myself.

And so grief, umm...

I was so scared of it.

When I learned that Emily had died and that that little flicker of hope that I was holding onto was evaporated and dissipated out from my grasp.

Grief came running in and it hit me really, really hard.

And I was scared.

I knew that this was gonna be hard and painful and I didn't want to deal with that, and I fought it.

And over the years though, because it's constantly gonna be there and it requires so much attention and energy, over time, my relationship, I would say, with grief has matured.

I look at grief in almost like a mentorship kind of a way.

It's taught me so much about who I am and what's important to me, and it's been a wonderful teacher and brought me to a place that I never thought that I would get to.

And so that's how my relationship with grief has matured over these years.

And as far as mental health goes, just so much more compassion for things that I've been through, and what I've been through, what other people are going through.

And when I see people struggling with whatever it may be, I wanna reach out to them.

I want to connect with them.

I wanna let 'em know it's okay.

I wanna let 'em know that there's people who understand.

And so those are how I view those things now.

- How much of that is a big part of the reason why you wrote this book?

- That's a majority of the reason why I wrote the book.

I mean, you know, on the cover you have Sandy Hook and you have Alex Jones, and you have this incredible, outrageous story, right?

But that's not really what the book is about.

I mean, that's what people will recognize and maybe get them to pick it up.

But what it's really about is it's about hope and it's about healing, and it's about understanding that my story may be something that you might not understand or feel like you can relate to, but we can definitely relate to each other because the hardest thing that you've been through is the hardest thing that you've been through.

This has been the hardest thing that I've been through.

We all have the same bucket of emotions to process and work through these things.

So people that I felt like I had nothing in common with, when I share my story, they feel like they can share their story and all of a sudden we're talking, we're connecting, we're healing.

And that's what really I want people to take away from this book.

- Tell us how your wife Alissa's doing.

- She's great.

She's so strong and she's so beautiful and a wonderful mother.

We've messed up so many times on this path as far as like in our own journeys and with our kids, but we've been there for each other.

And right now, she actually recently started a master's in social work program because she wants to be a counselor.

She wants to take the things that she's learned and help other people apply it in their lives.

And so we're happy and we're thriving still, and we're carrying grief with us and we're carrying Emily with us and we're dealing with Alex Jones still.

But all these things can exist at the same time and in the same place now and I feel like we're all in a much better place because of it.

- I don't wanna belabor this.

You said you're still dealing with Alex Jones.

He had a settlement.

He owes millions and millions of dollars that he says he can't pay.

What's there left to deal with?

- Well, bankruptcy, bankruptcy court.

Today actually, and just actually right now, there's a hearing that started in bankruptcy court about the sale of InfoWars and the Onion purchasing that.

As we're recording right now, that's happening.

And so still fighting him and it's gonna continue because he's never gonna take accountability.

- Tell us about your two other daughters, are how old?

- They're 15 and 16 now.

Emily would be 18.

So we had 'em really, really close.

- What do you say to your two daughters about Emily?

- You know, we don't really have to say a lot.

They were young, but they had their own memories.

They had their own relationship with her.

So when we talk, you know, we're recording this on December 10th, and four days is gonna be the 12th anniversary of us losing Emily.

And so we're gonna have lots of discussions about her and what she meant to all of us.

And they get to just participate in that.

And we all have equal stake because one thing about grief too that I didn't mention is, you know, we grieve differently, but it because she meant something different.

She had her own individual relationship with every single one of us.

So she had a different relationship with Samantha, for example, than she does with me and Alissa.

So that's why our grief is different because of what she meant to us.

And so we all can bring that together to the same table and work on it together.

- Your final message to those who say they want to stop horrific school shootings.

Are there any public policies that you believe, Robbie, that would make a difference, that would matter?

- Yeah, unfortunately, I can't say like this is gonna be the thing, right?

Alissa and one of the other Sandy Hook moms, they started a school safety nonprofit called Safe and Sound Schools.

- Say it again.

We'll put the graphic up.

Safe and Sound Schools.

- Safe and Sound Schools.

And so every community's different.

Every school has different needs, but there's tons of resources.

And if it's something that you feel empowered to do as a parent, because what's really uncomfortable is the biggest difference between me and any other parent that's putting their kid in a school today is chance.

And so that's a very uncomfortable thing to have to admit when you're a parent.

You can't just look at me and say, that's something that happens to somebody else over there.

I was very, very unlucky and somebody else is gonna be very unlucky in the future.

because that's just the reality of this.

But there is stuff that we can do, and it doesn't have to be one thing.

It doesn't have to be more guns, less guns or anything like that.

It's what's gonna work best for your school, and you need to get involved and understand what those things are and how you can help.

- Robbie, first of all, thank you so much.

On behalf of the entire public media community, thank you for being with us.

Thank you for sharing this message.

Thank you for the book.

Do you have a final word to parents, all parents of little children, please?

- Yeah, no, I mean, there's so much I can say, but I mean, the biggest thing is what I write about in this, especially from a parent's perspective, I know it's gonna be hard and I'm just asking you to step over that threshold from your comfort zone and sit in a place of discomfort for just a little bit until you realize that it's comfortable for you.

Because that's where change can happen in your life, and that's where you can be motivated to make the changes for other people that you're capable of doing.

So, I know it's a big ask, but I just want you to sit in that discomfort with me just for a little bit until you realize that you'll be okay and then you can use that to go make some big changes.

And that's really, again, this is what this book is about.

- Robbie, thank you.

And most importantly, to you, to your daughters, to your wife, Alissa, we wish you all the best and just thank you.

Thank you.

- I appreciate it.

No, it has been a pleasure.

Thanks Steve.

- Okay, thanks for watching.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Celebrating 30 years in public broadcasting.

Funding has been provided by Delta Dental of New Jersey.

Wells Fargo.

Hackensack Meridian Health.

The Fidelco Group.

Johnson & Johnson.

PSE&G, The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

And by Rowan University.

Promotional support provided by New Jersey Globe.

And by NJ.Com.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

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