MIAMI — The 13-year-old son of a controversial whistleblower who accused the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis of suppressing state data on the severity of the COVID pandemic in Florida was arrested this week on charges that he made “terrorist” threats on the internet.
Rebekah Jones, a state employee who used her access to Department of Health data to challenge the governor’s COVID numbers, resulting in the loss of her job, posted on Twitter Thursday that her son was arrested by sheriff’s deputies after sharing internet memes in a private chat with school friends. One, according to Jones, was a photo of a overweight man, apparently sleeping, with a caption likening him to a police officer responding to a school shooting. Jones described another meme as part of a viral series about intrusive thoughts that suggest grabbing an officer’s gun, knowing that the result could be fatal.
“Every time I see school security,” he wrote when he sent the meme, according to the police report. The Miami Herald has seen only a portion of the report. According to authorities, he also sent a meme on Snapchat that the police report described as “an individual with a shaved head holding a Hi-C drink. The message on the meme was “I’m feeling so silly I might shoot up a building full of people.”
A deputy who interviewed the young man asked if he’d had any intention of carrying out a shooting. The answer was no.
At a hearing Thursday afternoon, the judge released the boy to home detention with an electric monitor. His use of the internet is limited to what is necessary for his school work and he is allowed to leave home to play soccer with his local team.
The arraignment was scheduled for May 3 at the Santa Rosa County Courthouse.
The youth, who is not being named to protect his privacy, was arrested Wednesday on charges he made “written (or) electronic threats” of a “mass shooting (or) terrorist act.” The threats reportedly were made Feb. 1, and brought to the attention of law enforcement authorities on March 23.
Until his release after Thursday’s hearing, the boy was being held at the Escambia Regional Juvenile Detention Center, a 50-bed state-run lockup in Pensacola. Jones and her son live in Santa Rosa County, just west of Pensacola in the Florida Panhandle.
Wednesday’s detention marked the boy’s first arrest. He appears to have been evaluated Wednesday at the region’s Juvenile Assessment Center, a centralized screening facility for minors who are charged with a crime.
Several weeks ago, Jones sued the state of Florida over her termination, which she said was unjustified.
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