A data scientist in Florida who has accused the state of manipulating coronavirus data has announced that she will surrender Sunday night after authorities issued an arrest warrant.
Rebekah Jones, one of the scientists who helped make Florida’s COVID-19 dashboard, said on Twitter that she would surrender to authorities about a month after law enforcement cracked down on her home.
“To protect my family from continued police violence and to show that I am ready to fight for everything they throw at me, I changed myself Sunday night in Florida,” Jones tweeted. “The governor will not win his war against science and freedom of speech. He will not silence those who speak. ”
To protect my family from continued police violence, and to show that I am ready to fight for everything they throw at me, I change my Sunday night in Florida. The Governor will not win his war against science and freedom of speech. He will not silence those who speak.
– Rebekah Jones (@GeoRebekah) 16 January 2021
Jones claimed she was removed from her position in May for refusing to “manually change data” to support the argument for lifting coronavirus restrictions, but a government spokeswoman said. Ron DeSantis
Ron DeSantis The Republicans of Florida join Trump after siege of the Capitol. Once the candidate for a slam-dunk candidate, Trump’s ambitions of 2024 were already teeming after the chaos of the Capitol, state and federal officials wrestling over vaccine deployment slowed MORE (R) accused Jones in May of showing “a repeated rate of insubordination” and “blatant contempt”.
Police allege she used a Department of Health communication platform to send a November 10 text saying it was “time to talk before another 17,000 people are killed.” Law enforcers acted on a search warrant on Dec. 7 to investigate the text, which Jones denied.
On Twitter, Jones alleges that a warrant was issued for her arrest on a charge unrelated to the raid, and says there is no evidence that she sent the group text.
“They found no evidence of anything related to the warrant, so they came up with something new to repay me,” she said.
‘However, the police did find documents that I received / downloaded from sources in the state, or something like that … it is not clear at this stage what they say exactly that I had, but what I should not have had no, but an agent confirmed that it had nothing to do with the subject of the warrant, ‘Jones said. “The raid was based on a lie.”
The data scientist also said that an agent told her lawyer that officials could add more charges if she spoke out against the police.
The governor’s office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The FDLE NBC News confirmed Sunday that agents are cooperating with Jones’ attorneys and will release more information after she is in custody.
Jones het lawsuit filed against the state for the raid, calls it an illegal retaliation and an attempt to silence her, and has requested the state return computer equipment seized by authorities during the raid.
The data scientist accused the state of misrepresenting the data, including only the rate of new positive COVID-19 tests. After leaving the Florida Department of Health, the state stopped publishing the coronavirus death list, which was reportedly ten percent higher than the state, according to NBC News.