Conflicting Reports Emerge About Arrest Of Rebekah Jones' Son, As News Outlets Differ On Who Sent School Shooting Threats

It's been two days since Florida activist and politician Rebekah Jones made the bold claim that the state had arrested her son – which she dubbed a kidnapping – for "sharing memes" related to school shootings.

As Jones told it, the meme that got her son in trouble with the state could hardly be interpreted as a threat or statement of intent to commit a school shooting, as the example she shared was focused more on police inactivity during school shootings.

She interpreted her son's arrest as the state attempting to intimidate her after she filed a lawsuit to get her job back. Jones rose to prominence at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic when she was fired for, according to her, refusing to falsify the state's data on COVID-19.

Since her incendiary Twitter thread, more information has come out about Jones' son's arrest. Yesterday, South Santa Rosa News reported that there was more to the story than Jones detailed in her thread.

According to the report, there were two other noteworthy memes Jones' son allegedly shared in a Snapchat group with other students of Holley-Navarre Middle School that could be interpreted as threatening.

One had a caption that read "I’m feeling so silly I might shoot up a building full of people" while another shows a brain thinking "reach for the officer's gun" (part of a larger meme trend) that was captioned "me every time i see school security." The memes were posted by The Daily Mail shortly after.

According to the report, the memes were sent from an account with the handle "jjthealcoholic," which other students identified as that of Jones' son. Jones' son was questioned by the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office on March 23rd, where he stated he had no intent to carry out a school shooting.

The report also states that the account sent messages that could be interpreted as credible threats. These read:

“I want to shoot up the school”
- “If I get a gun I’m gonna shoot up hnms lol”
- “Not like I have access to one anyway”
- “I’m getting a wrath and natural selection shirt so maybe but I don’t think many ppl know what the columbine shooters look like”
- “I always keep a knife on me so maybe I’ll just stab ppl idk”
- “Nah if I do kill people I’ll just kill myself”

The South Santa Rosa News report conflicts with The Miami Herald's report of the developing story. The Herald found that while Jones' son may have shared the memes in question, it is unclear if he sent the threatening messages.

The Herald reports that:

An unredacted version of the warrant, obtained by the Herald, shows the threatening messages were sent by a username that was different than the one Jones’ son used to send the memes. The document does not say how authorities determined both usernames are linked to the same account. The redacted version circulated by authorities does not reveal that there were two different usernames involved.

They also spoke to Rebekah Jones, who reportedly showed them screenshots of her son's Snapchat account. The screenshots showed that her son had changed his Snapchat name in January before the threatening messages were made. Furthermore, she said her son "has never used the handle associated with the threatening messages."

Jones' son has been released to house arrest, where he is not allowed to use the internet outside of school work. His arraignment is scheduled for May 3rd.