More on that Florida police raid yesterday:
Florida law enforcement agents searched the home of former state data scientist Rebekah Jones on Monday, entering her house with weapons drawn as they carried out a warrant as part of an investigation into an unauthorized message that was sent on a state communications system. …
The Florida Department of Health is the agency that fired Jones in May, after she helped create the state’s COVID-19 dashboard.
Jones has said she lost her job after she refused requests to manipulate data to suggest Florida was ready to ease coronavirus restrictions. A spokesperson for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at the time that she “exhibited a repeated course of insubordination during her time with the department.”
Fun fact: insubordination is defined as refusing to obey reasonable and lawful orders – not just any old orders. If her bosses told her to manipulate data that’s not reasonable or lawful.
The search warrant was authorized as investigators tried to learn who sent a chat message to a planning group on an emergency alert platform, urging people to speak out publicly about Florida’s coronavirus strategies.
Still not seeing why the weapons were drawn.
Jones posted a short video of the raid online Tuesday, showing several agents entering her home, carrying pistols and at least one rifle. In the footage, Jones tells them that her husband and two children are in the house.
…
As the agents enter, one points their weapon upstairs. Jones says the agents pointed a gun at her and at her children.
It’s not clear from the video whether agents pointed a gun at Jones’ family members. The top of stairs are not in view.
But if you’re pointing the gun at the top of the stairs…even if the children are not yet in the line of fire they could be at any second. It’s a fairly terrifying sight.
Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Rick Swearingen denies Jones’ assertion, issuing a statement about the raid that states, “At no time were weapons pointed at anyone in the home.”
They were just pointed at the top of the stairs where the remaining people in the home had just been ordered to come downstairs.
Jones says the raid and the seizure of her computer and other devices won’t stop her work in tracking and reporting COVID-19 data. And she urged state officials to focus on easing the pandemic’s horrible effects on Florida’s citizens.
“DeSantis needs to worry less about what I’m writing about, and more about the people who are sick and dying in his state,” Jones told CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “And doing this to me will not stop me from reporting the data.”
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5 responses to “The top of the stairs”
In fact, the Florida governor may have just given her a larger platform. Her signal is likely to be multiplied because of their actions.
Florida’s commissioner and vice-chair for 12th Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission has resigned over this:
From his resignation letter:
Insubordination normally means refusing to comply with a lawful order. “Reasonable” is not normally part of it. It may well be insubordination to refuse to comply with an “unreasonable” order provided that it’s not unlawful.
That’s interesting. I found that definition via a quick google; I should have been slower.
latsot, thanks for that! He reviewed the search warrant and found it to be shite; so useful to know.
Well, the paramilitary police are supposed to be trained to carry their weapons in various ‘conditions’ to make accidental firing less likely: fingers off the trigger, safety catches on etc. in various combinations.
But both a .223 rifle bullet, and a 9mm pistol bullet will easily penetrate a wall or a floor and inflict lethal injuries on the other side. The can’t have known who might have been ‘pointed at’ as they waved their toys about.