Son of controversial Florida data scientist charged with making alleged school threats

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.

Memes and messages found on Snapchat

The Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office arrest report reveals that authorities became aware of the alleged threatening messages in late March.

A student flagged school administration on March 21 about a screenshot from social media about a possible school shooting at Holley-Navarre Middle School that was supposed to take place that week, the report said, and several students in the area were subsequently interviewed by deputies.

Teenagers who spoke with deputies showed screenshots of memes Jones’ son allegedly shared on Snapchat and said he also threatened to shoot up his former middle school the week before spring break but later changed his mind.

Deputies interviewed a student who said he remembered seeing Jones’ son had posted in February about a school shooting and saw it on his Snap story. Jones’s son also allegedly told that student “he was going to bring an axe to school but his parents took it from him,” the arrest report said.

Another student interviewed by the sheriff's office said she spoke with Jones’ son on Discord in February and he told her he wanted to end his own life and shoot up the school, targeting people that hurt him in the past.

On March 23, officers interviewed the son at his home. He said that his friends were the ones that started the rumor and he didn’t know why people make up stuff about him. The boy told the officer he had no intentions of carrying out a shooting, and no weapons were found in his room.

Authorities had also spoken with Rebekah Jones two days prior and she said no guns were in the home. She said her son was being homeschooled and was getting good grades.

A search warrant for information from the son’s Snapchat showed messages and pictures from February to nearly the end of March and showed three memes, two of which were described by students who spoke with deputies.

One showed an individual with a shaved head holding a Hi-C drink with the words, “I’m feeling so silly I might shoot up a building full of people.” Another was a meme that showed a brain with the brain saying “Reach for the officer’s gun” and the caption underneath said, “me every time I see school security.”

The warrant also revealed chats allegedly sent from Jones’ son to other Snapchat accounts with phrases like “I want to shoot up the school” and “if I get a gun I’m gonna shoot up hnms [the acronym for a school] lol,” the arrest report said.

Those chat messages were sent from a different user name. The arrest report appeared to address the name discrepancy saying: “It should be noted Snapchat uses a name to id the account to other people and the actual user name.”

Jones’ son was released to home detention with an electronic monitor and has a youth’s arraignment scheduled for May 3, The Miami Herald reported.

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.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com