Former Florida Department of Health employee Rebekah Jones said Wednesday that Gov. Ron DeSantis' had his hands "all over" a police raid at her house earlier this week because she's been vocally critical of the state's pandemic response.
"When I found out about the judge being sworn in less than a month before he signed the warrant, and it being one of the first things that he did on the bench after he was appointed by Gov. DeSantis, it became very clear that despite all of his protesting that he's got his hands all over this," Jones told CNN's "New Day."
Jones, a former Department of Health data scientist, says she was fired in May from her position as the department's Geographic Information Systems manager because she refused to manipulate information for the state's highly praised COVID-19 dashboard she built.
On Monday, a video camera in Jones' house recorded police coming to her home, while her husband and children were present, and taking her "hardware and tech," including computers.
Investigators are probing whether Jones improperly accessed a government messaging system to call on workers to speak out about the coronavirus, and in an affidavit say a text was sent from her house with that goal.
Meanwhile, Jones said she's concerned about other Florida workers who have sent her information, and she's been calling them one-by-one because she wants them to know she made all of her best efforts to protect them.
"Some of them have been brave enough to actually reach out to me since this happened and ask if I'm okay, and you know, provide any information that they can," said Jones. "Talk about heroes, these are the real heroes. It's never been me. I'm a scientist just doing my job."
Jones said that when the police came to her house, she expected that she was going to be arrested, but instead, they conducted a raid "with guns pointed at my kids. It was very terrifying for my family."
She said the incident has made her 'more resolute" about how important it is that people get information about the spread of coronavirus.
"There are more than 300,000 confirmed COVID cases in K-12 schools in this country," she said. "It is more important now that I keep doing this. For my family's sake, we're thinking about having them stay with family for a while."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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