JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Eight days ago, with guns drawn, investigators with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement showed up at the home of Florida's former COVID-19 data chief Rebekah Jones.
Officials were there to serve a search warrant. Jones is under investigation, accused of hacking into the state's emergency alert system. Jones created the state's original COVID-19 tracking dashboard. She now runs an independent version.
Governor Ron DeSantis fired Jones in the spring after she accused the state of manipulating Coronavirus infection data to downplay the pandemic.
Jones said the investigation is in direct retaliation. Investigators say an IP address was traced back to Jones, which she denies.
"It's bizarre," Jones said. "I don't understand how somebody like me ends up on the governor's hitlist. I really don't. All I ever did was want to provide information to people so they can make informed decisions."
"There's a playbook on disinformation campaigns, especially when it comes to science," Jones continued. "And we saw it play out in a very violent and aggressive way more so than anything I'm familiar with."
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner is defending his agent's actions in the raid on Jones' home. FDLE commissioner Richard L. Swearingen said his agents handled things professionally and did not point guns at Jones' children, like Jones said they did.
"In light of the allegations being thrown at law enforcement today, for her to make those false statements about how law enforcement officers behaved, I feel like that needs to be addressed," Swearingen said.
DeSantis also defended how agents served the warrant.
"I knew there was an IP address and there was a search warrant," Gov. DeSantis said. "I didn't necessarily know how they were going to serve it or anything like that. But quite frankly, I think they did it by the book."
Body camera video shows agents outside for a little more than 20 minutes, knocking on the door and calling Jones.
"We had been trying to knock politely on her door, ring her doorbell and called her numerous times to handle this in a manner that was respectful of the fact that there were children there," Swearingen said.
Jones said the commissioner is downplaying the situation.
"That's pretty much the template for police, anytime they act are really aggressive is to defend every action that they took and swear that they did the best they could under the situation," Jones said.
Jones said when agents called her, she called her lawyers.
"I thought in this country that unless somebody has a search warrant, you don't have to open the door for them," Jones said. "Or you have no obligation to speak to the police if you don't want to if you're not under arrest, you don't have to go with them."
Agents seized computer and hard drives from Jones' home.
She said she is innocent, and said she hopes whoever hacked into the system comes forward. Jones believes DeSantis targeted her for speaking up against the state.
"I knew that he had his hands all over this, but it's in a very extreme and autocratic step to take to send police to harass somebody because they're critical of you publicly," Jones said.
"Someone who I've worked under for years without issue and have served gladly for years without issue and have never actually sat down in spoken to, and gone through anything in depth, to show that kind of contempt for me now for no reason other than that I'm sharing information is frightening," Jones said.
"When it escalates to the point of sending the police to my home and threaten my family [...] I feel like I'm watching something that's happening in a different country," Jones continued. "It seems surreal to me, I am not an important person. I'm not a politician, I have no power other than information."
Swearingen said he hasn't talked to DeSantis about this investigation.
"If she’s implying that somehow she was targeted in this investigation, that’s impossible because nobody could’ve known who that IP address belonged to until we got the subpoena results back from Comcast," Swearingen said.
A camera inside Jones' home also recorded the incident.