Police raided the home of an ex-Florida official who refused to censor the state’s coronavirus data, “escalating a feud between the state government” and a whistleblower “who has accused officials of trying to cover up the extent of the pandemic,” CNN reported.
Nearly a dozen cops with drawn guns showed up at Rebekkah Jones’ home at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, December 7, 2020, and pointed guns at her young children, CNN said.
“A video taken from a camera in her house, which she posted on social media, showed an officer pointing a gun up a stairwell as Jones told him her two children were upstairs. Jones said that the officer was pointing his gun at her 2-year-old daughter, 11-year-old son and her husband, who she said were in the stairwell,” CNN reported. (The photo at left is a screen grab from that video.)
The cops were executing a search warrant for “a person at Jones’ home” state authorities allege used her email address to gain access to a state emergency management communications platform and send a group text urging recipoients “to speak up before another 17,000 people are dead.” A state investigator said the cops were looking for computer hardware and electronics.
“Jones led the effort to establish a public information portal that listed the numbers of coronavirus deaths and cases in the state,” NBC News said, then was fired for refusing to “manually change data to drum up support for the plan to reopen.”
She denied sending the text message. “I’m not a hacker,” Jones said, adding the wording of the message is “not the way I talk” and it contained mistakes she wouldn’t make. “The number of deaths … wasn’t even right,” Jones said.
NBC News wrote, “Jones said the agents seized evidence of ‘corruption at the state level,’ and she blamed the raid on Gov. Ron DeSantis. ‘This is what happens to scientists who do their job honestly,’ she said. … DeSantis’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”
“DeSantis’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic has been harshly criticized. … [His] administration suppressed unfavorable facts, dispensed dangerous misinformation, dismissed public health professionals, and promoted the views of scientific dissenters who supported the governor’s approach to the disease.’ According to public health experts, politics dictated the response to the coronavirus in Florida …. DeSantis rejected … a statewide face mask mandate, belatedly implemented stay-at-home orders, and let his stay-at-home order … expire. In July 2020, as Florida had become a global epicenter of the coronavirus, with nearly 5,800 deaths, DeSantis had … sidelined health experts and scientists …. DeSantis boasted about the low number of coronavirus cases in Florida, and harshly criticized those who had argued that the state’s lax response to the coronavirus was insufficient. … On March 8, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention privately briefed DeSantis that Florida was already experiencing community spread of COVID-19, however the next day, DeSantis publicly denied that Florida was experiencing community spread …. DeSantis received criticism for falsely stating on April 9 that that no fatalities under 25 had been caused in the United States by COVID-19. … In November 2020, it was revealed that DeSantis had hired a sports blogger known for pushing COVID-19 disinformation to the state’s Office of Policy and Budget in a data analyst position.”