Former state of Florida employee, self-proclaimed “whistleblower,” and Democratic congressional candidate Rebekah Jones announced on Twitter this Wednesday that her 13-year-old son had been arrested for “digital threats of terrorism.”
In a series of tweets, Jones said a warrant had been issued for her son’s arrest over messages he allegedly shared in a Snapchat group.
“THIS is the reality of living in DeSantis’ Florida,” Jones wrote. “There is no freedom here. Only retaliatory rule by a fascist who wishes to be king.”
Jones went on to say that a week “after we filed our lawsuit against the state, 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.”
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“Two weeks later, bringing us to earlier today, an officer told me the state issued a warrant for my son’s arrest for ‘digital threats of terrorism.’ I asked on whose orders. The officer said it was the state. They aren’t letting him come home tonight. They kidnapped my son,” she continued.
According to the Pensacola News Journal, a spokesperson for the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office confirmed on Thursday that Jones’ son had been arrested, but it was not for “sharing a popular internet meme,” as Jones claimed. An incident report released by the Santa Rosa Sheriff’s Office says that the 13-year-old made repeated threats to shoot up Holley Navarre Middle School and to stab students who made him angry.
“I want to shoot up the school,” her son allegedly wrote on social media. “If I get a gun I’m gonna shoot up hnms lol.”
“I’m getting a wrath and natural selection shirt so maybe but I don’t think many ppl know what the columbine shooters look like,” another of her son’s messages read.
“Okay so it’s been like 3-4 weeks since I got on my new antidepressants and they aren’t working but they’re suppose to by now so I have no hope in getting better so why not kill the losers at school.,” her son wrote.
Jones was celebrated by the mainstream media as a whistleblower, but her claims of being persecuted by DeSantis in a retaliatory manner soon became disputed. In a 2021 op-ed in the National Review that criticized many of Jones’ claims, conservative journalist Charles C.W. Cooke alleged that Jones’ story did not match up with reality. Cooke went on to point out that the data Jones cited on her separate dashboard was identical to the government’s.
“By all accounts, Rebekah Jones is a talented developer of GIS dashboards,” Cooke wrote. “But that’s all she is. She’s not a data scientist. She’s not an epidemiologist. She’s not a doctor. She didn’t ‘build’ the ‘data system,’ as she now claims, nor is she a ‘data manager.'”
An inspector general’s report later found there was no merit to her claims.
This article was updated with additional information in regards to the alleged threats made by Jones’ son.
