The 13-year-old son of a controversial Florida data scientist was arrested Wednesday and accused of threatening to shoot up his former middle school.
The boy is the son of Rebekah Jones, a scientist and fierce critic of Gov. Ron DeSantis, who claimed she was fired from the state's health department in 2020 for refusing to censor Florida’s Covid-19 numbers.
Her son, who is not being named as he is a minor, was charged with written or electronic threat to conduct a mass shooting or an act of terrorism, a second-degree felony, the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office arrest report said.
The arrest report shows that several students in the area of Navarre, Florida, reported seeing Jones' son's alleged threatening memes and messages on Snapchat and Discord — but his mother suggests that his arrest was politically motivated…
Jones suggests her family is being 'targeted'
After her son's arrest, Rebekah Jones tweeted Wednesday: “My family is not safe. My son has been taken on the gov’s orders, and I’ve had to send my husband and daughter out of state for their safety.”
She's shared several posts on Twitter regarding her son's arrest, insinuating that it may be related to a lawsuit she filed on March 13 in Leon County, Florida, against the Florida Department of Health. The suit, filed under the state whistleblower act, seeks to have her job reinstated and monetary damages…
She said that one week after she filed the lawsuit, “a kid claiming to be the cousin of one of my son’s classmates joined their snapchat group. They recorded their conversations, and anonymously reported my son to police for sharing a popular internet meme,” which she claimed wasn’t threatening.
She said a threat assessment was launched into the complaint and the matter culminated with her son’s arrest Wednesday.
She appeared to point blame to local politics on Thursday, tweeting: “Everything my son has struggled with these last two years came from DeSantis personally targeting my family for blowing up his COVID success story lie.”
By Thursday evening, Jones tweeted: "My son is home with me now and sleeping."
Jones was flung into the spotlight in 2020 in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
At the time, she operated as a website and dashboard designer for Florida tracking the coronavirus pandemic. She claimed she was asked to falsify Covid positivity rates or misrepresent them on the state’s dashboard.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has criticized Jones, and his office said she was fired in May 2020 for repeated “insubordination.”
A report from the Florida Department of Health’s Office of Inspector General said it found “insufficient evidence” or no evidence to support Rebekah Jones’ accusations.
Since then, she has heavily denounced DeSantis on social media. Jones ran for Congress in 2022, losing to Rep. Matt Gaetz.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/son-controversial-florida-data-scientist-charged-making-alleged-school-rcna78653