Former Atlanta Braves legend Chipper Jones is in some hot water this week after posting on Twitter his beliefs that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a “hoax.”
Jones posted this tweet on Friday:
Screenshot of Chipper Jones Tweet: Twitter/@RealCJ10
Apparently the post was in reference to a post on Alex Jones’ Infowar Website, which suspected that the shootings were fake because the deaths had not been listed on a FBI crime data report. The FBI reports reflect the fact that the Connecticut State Police handled the crime scene and thus the death records are listed in state crime records, not federal records.
Jones has since deleted the tweet, but not before sparking outrage from victims’ families.
Cristina Hassinger told the New York Daily News, “For more than two years now, my family and the other families of Sandy Hook have been dealing with conspiracy theorists. They harass us, saying it was all a hoax. They accuse us of being in on the hoax a lot of the time. So it’s really so disappointing to see someone who is supposed to be an American role model come out and promote the Sandy Hook hoax theory.”
Hassinger’s mother was Dawn Hochsprung, the principal of Sandy Hook Elementary who died while trying to protect her students.
Hassinger offered to prove to Jones that her mother, along with 25 others, were real victims of the shooting. She responded to Jones’ initial tweet with one of her own:
.@RealCJ10 Come for dinner. You can meet my grandmother-less children and I'll show you my mom's clothes riddled with bullet holes.
— cristina hassinger (@chass63) February 7, 2015
Jones later issued a two-part Twitter apology:
My apologies for my Sandy Hook tweet yest. I had heard something from someone which I thought to be credible and tweeted w/out researching.
— Chipper Jones (@RealCJ10) February 7, 2015
It was irresponsible of me to do that and will not happen again. Please accept my heartfelt apology to those who were hurt or offended.
— Chipper Jones (@RealCJ10) February 7, 2015
Still though, Jones’ apology didn’t cut it for Hassinger or many other victims’ families. Hassinger urged Jones to inform himself about the Sandy Hook victims and support their families.
She told the New York Daily News, “The website mysandyhookfamily.org, it has a brief description of each of the victims that the families put together themselves. I would certainly invite Mr. Jones to visit the site to learn more about the victims and honor them. That would be a good first step in showing the families that he’s remorseful.”