TALLAHASSEE – The Florida Department of Law Enforcement released the full body camera footage from the raid at the home of the state’s former COVID-19 data curator, Rebekah Jones.
Jones was fired from her post in May after raising questions about Florida’s COVID data. She had been reprimanded several times and was ultimately fired for violating Health Department policy by making public remarks about the information, state records show.
Jones has been under investigation since early November when someone illegally accessed the state’s emergency alert health system, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
LINKS: Bodycam video 1 | Bodycam video 2
Just after the 8 minute mark of the second video, an officer knocks on the door, while another announces they’re with the police department. One officer attempts to call Jones on the phone, but the call goes straight to voicemail. An officer continues knocking of the door.
“Ms. Jones?” she announces.
The officer continues to knock, pausing for several moments in between. A third officer approaches the door, knocking as well, before attempting to call Jones’ cellphone as well. It again goes to voicemail.
The officers converse, as one continues to knock and call out for Jones.
“Police! Search warrant! Open the door,” one officer yells repeatedly while knocking on the door and holding a sledge hammer.
The voice of a woman is heard inside.
“Open the door, now!” The officer yells. Another officer holding a firearm with a mounted flashlight approaches a window.
After 15 minutes and 23 seconds into the video, Jones opens the door and comes outside with her hands above her head. She explains to the officers that her two children and her husband are inside the house. An officer walks inside, asking for anyone inside to come downstairs.
“Police! Come down, now,” an officer yells.
“Do not point that gun at my children,” Jones yells. “He just pointed a gun at my children! Why is he pointing a gun at the stairs there are children up there?”
From the angle of the body cam, the officer’s actions can’t be verified. Jones said in a prior tweet, “They pointed a gun in my face. They pointed guns at my kids.”
According to video footage Jones posted of the incident, multiple officers who entered Jones’ home had their guns drawn. One pointed his gun up the stairs as authorities urged Jones to call her husband and children downstairs. The officer then lowered his weapon after Jones yelled, “Do not point that gun at my children!”
Jones’ husband and the two children then exit the house.
“There is no need for this, at all,” an officer tells Jones. “I’m going to explain everything to you about why we’re here, but right now we’re off to a pretty rocky start. All you had to do was answer the door there was no doubt who we were.”
“Yeah. We were told we didn’t have to answer the door. That’s what our lawyer told us -- not to answer the door for you,” Jones tells the officer.
A prepared statement from FDLE Rick Swearingen reads in part: “This video demonstrates that FDLE agents exercised extreme patience. Search warrants are one of the most dangerous events a law enforcement officer will engage in and many officers are killed each year during the execution of search warrants. No search warrant is routine or without potential officer safety issues regardless of the underlying crime. Agents afforded Ms. Jones ample time to come to the door and resolve this matter in a civil and professional manner. As this video will demonstrate, any risk or danger to Ms. Jones or her family was the result of her actions.”
In a Tuesday interview, Capitol News Service in Tallahassee asked Jones why it took so long.
“They knocked on the door. They messaged my lawyer to say the police are here. And they told me to go downstairs, do what they said. I was in my nightgown, so I think I ended up putting on my husbands sweat pants,” she said.
Jones’ legal defense GoFundMe account has topped $200,000.
When fired in May, Jones also created a GoFundMe account. It totals more than a quarter million dollars, bringing the total she has raised to over a half million dollars.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.