US police officers have raided the home and confiscated the computers of Rebekah Jones, a scientist who served as a manager of Florida's COVID-19 dashboard until May, when she was fired from the state's health department after her alleged refusal to manipulate data to support the reopening of Florida's economy, CNN reported on Tuesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th December, 2020) US police officers have raided the home and confiscated the computers of Rebekah Jones, a scientist who served as a manager of Florida's COVID-19 dashboard until May, when she was fired from the state's health department after her alleged refusal to manipulate data to support the reopening of Florida's economy, CNN reported on Tuesday.
According to the US media outlet, about 10 armed police officers entered Jones' home at 8:30 a.m. (13:40 GMT) on Monday to confiscate the computers that Jones used to manage her own dashboard of COVID-19 cases in Florida after she had been fired from the health department.
Rebekah Jones wrote on her Twitter account that the police pointed guns at her family while searching her home, adding that the raid was allegedly initiated by Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who she had accused of manipulating the COVID-19 statistics.
"They pointed a gun in my face. They pointed guns at my kids ... If Desantis thought pointing a gun in my face was a good way to get me to shut up, he's about to learn just how wrong he was," Jones wrote.
Florida Department of Law Enforcement said that the investigation against Jones was initiated in November after Florida's health department complained that "a person illegally hacked into their emergency alert system."
The department stressed that its agents entered the home "in accordance with normal protocols" and did not pointed weapons at anyone at home.
According to CNN, Fred Piccolo, the spokesman of DeSantis, denied these allegations, saying that the governor did not even know that the investigation against Jones had been initiated.
According to Johns Hopkins University, Florida has confirmed 7,711 new cases of the coronavirus over the past 24 hours, with the total number of infections reaching 1,065,785. The United States continues to be the country with the highest single toll of confirmed cases and deaths � over 14.9 million and over 283,000, respectively. Over 192,000 cases were recorded over the past day.
