Registered Democrat Arrested After Threatening to Shoot Republican Lawmakers in Florida

Lorenz Duchamps
By Lorenz Duchamps
November 19, 2020US News
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Registered Democrat Arrested After Threatening to Shoot Republican Lawmakers in Florida
Karen Jones, 55, of Palm Beach County, Florida, in a booking photo. (Courtesy of Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office)

A Florida woman was arrested over the weekend after making online threats that she was going to shoot multiple Republican lawmakers, accusing them of “looting” her state, authorities said.

The 55-year-old registered Democrat has been identified as Karen Jones by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office. She was taken into custody on Nov. 14 at her home in Lantana several days after making the remarks, the Miami-Herald reported.

“[Ron] DeSantis, Rick Scott, and Marco Rubio are looting my state. Imma shoot them,” Jones wrote, the sheriff’s office said. The post is still available for people to see on her personal Twitter account.

The three elected officials she threatened to shoot are all Republicans. DeSantis is the governor of Florida; Scott and Rubio are both senators.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks holding his mask during a press conference to address the rise of CCP virus cases in the state, at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami on July 13, 2020. (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) questions Homeland Security
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on the government’s response to the CCP virus outbreak in Washington on March 5, 2020. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
NTD Photo
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) campaigns for Republican U.S. Senate candidates David Purdue and Kelly Loeffler during a Save Our Majority campaign rally in Marietta, Georgia, on Nov. 11, 2020. (Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)

Jones was booked into the Palm Beach County Jail on three counts of written threats to kill or do bodily harm. Her bond was set at $15,000, according to court records.

According to the arrest affidavit obtained by the Herald, she admitted during her interview with detectives she wrote the post, adding that it was just “a joke.”

“When I made the observation that there were no commonly used terminology to show the post was a joke, Jones stated that anyone who follows her knows her sense of humor,” Detective M. Horton wrote in the affidavit.

Jones wrote the remarks in a retweet from a Washington Post reporter who tweeted an article about proposed “anti-mob” legislation that would expand Florida’s “stand your ground law.”

According to jail records she was released on Nov. 15, one day after her arrest.

Jones is not the first person in Florida to threaten to kill elected officials. In April 2019, 49-year-old John Kless from Tamarac was arrested after threatening to kill Democrat officials over comments by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) about the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Kless pleaded guilty late last year to one count of making threatening communications, according to a news release from the Department of Justice. He was convicted in August 2019 and imprisoned for one year and one day in federal prison.

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