TALLAHASSEE – The 13-yr-outdated son of Rebekah Jones, who claimed she was fired for refusing to manipulate COVID-19 facts even though at the state’s Overall health Division, was arrested Wednesday for allegedly threatening a capturing at a center faculty.
The boy was billed with created or digital threats to get rid of, do bodily damage, or conduct a mass capturing or an act of terrorism, a next-degree felony, in accordance to a warrant issued by the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office environment.
In protection digital camera video at the sheriff’s workplace, Jones can be found accompanying the boy to the sheriff’s office on Wednesday afternoon, where by he surrendered.
Thursday evening, Jones, who has a sizable on the web following, tweeted, “My son is home with me now and sleeping.”
She proposed, without having evidence, that her son’s arrest was relevant to a lawsuit she filed on March 13 in Leon County versus the Florida Division of Overall health and a former supervisor, less than the point out whistleblower act, looking for to get her occupation again, missing wages and damages for her procedure as an employee.
A spokeswoman for Gov. Ron DeSantis referred issues about the arrest “to the diligent regulation enforcement of Santa Rosa Sheriff’s place of work.”
Jones observed in a tweet that the sheriff’s office environment began investigating her son shortly right after she filed the lawsuit. She claimed on Twitter that her son had despatched “just memes” to his mates that she suggests were being not threatening.
But, in accordance to police reviews, several learners at a Navarre middle college instructed law enforcement that Jones’ son experienced instructed persons he prepared a university shooting and posted threatening memes and messages on Snapchat and Discord. 1 scholar explained to police that the boy told her on Discord he needed to stop his everyday living and shoot up the university.
Just after issuing a lookup warrant, officers said they found messages in February from the boy’s Snapchat account referencing guns and the Columbine Superior Faculty massacre and options to shoot and stab individuals at the faculty.
In the course of an interview with police on March 23, the boy advised police he did not intend to have out the taking pictures and police did not find any guns at his residence. Jones told law enforcement the boy no lengthier attended the faculty and was being property-schooled, according to law enforcement documents.
Jones in 2020 accused the DeSantis administration of trying to include up the extent of the pandemic and firing her for refusing to falsify numbers to limit the scale of the outbreak. Last yr, a condition inspector common report claimed her promises had been “unsubstantiated” and Covid-19 data was not falsified.
Jones publicly shared the tale of her dismissal right before leaving the office in Could 2020 and grew to become a popular online critic of DeSantis. She unsuccessfully ran for Congress previous 12 months from Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz.
In December 2020, point out law enforcement executed a lookup warrant at Jones’ house although investigating whether she accessed a state messaging procedure without having authorization to connect with for state officials to talk out about Covid-19 fatalities. She was in the end billed with a single depend of offenses in opposition to customers of computers, laptop or computer systems, laptop networks and electronic products. In December, Jones agreed to acknowledge guilt and spend a $20,000 price in a pretrial deferred prosecution agreement.
