Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones ignited a courtroom shouting match yesterday, railing against critics as he testified in a trial to determine how much he owes families of victims who died in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, which he falsely claimed was a hoax, Reuters reported. Tensions boiled over after roughly four hours of testimony in the Waterbury, Connecticut courtroom, not far from Newtown, the town where the massacre took place. Jones fulminated against "liberals" and refused to apologize to a packed gallery of victims' families. The defamation trial concerns only how much Jones and the parent company of his Infowars site must pay in damages for spreading lies that the U.S. government staged the killing of 20 children and six staff members as a pretext for seizing guns. The testimony triggered a three-way shouting match between Jones, Mattei and Jones' lawyer, Norman Pattis, who repeatedly objected to Mattei's questioning. After jurors left for the day, Judge Barbara Bellis told the attorneys that she would enforce a "zero tolerance" policy for disruptions and would hold contempt-of-court hearings for anyone who "steps out of line," including Jones.
