The Marion County Sheriff’s Office reported that a lady who is accused of fatally shooting her Florida neighbor over an argument about the victim’s children was detained on Tuesday.
Susan Louise Lorincz, 58, was arrested on charges of manslaughter with a firearm, culpable negligence, battery and two counts of assault, the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
Lorincz, who is white, is accused of fatally shooting Ajike “AJ” Owens, who was Black, through a closed door in Ocala on Friday night, according to the sheriff’s office.
The Owens family’s civil rights attorney, Ben Crump, and others have called for an arrest and brought up issues of racism and Florida’s “stand your ground” self-defense statute.
“While we are relieved that the woman apparently responsible for the tragic killing of Ajike ‘AJ’ Owens has been arrested, we are no less concerned that accountability has taken this long because archaic laws like Stand Your Ground exist,” attorneys for Owens’ family, including Crump, said in a statement Tuesday night.
On Friday, the shooting took place at 9 p.m. The sheriff’s office claimed that over time, Lorincz had grown irate about Owens’ children playing in a nearby field and had “engaged in an argument” with them.
According to the sheriff’s office, Lorincz hurled a roller skate at Owens’ 10-year-old son during the dispute and then swung an umbrella at him and a sibling. The sheriff’s office claims that after numerous knocks on Lorincz’s door, Owens was shot through the door.
It claimed Owens was shot in the upper chest and passed away.
The sheriff’s office stated in a statement that Lorincz told detectives she used self-defense and that Owens had been attempting to break down her door before she fired her gun.
Before making an arrest, deputies are obligated by law, according to sheriff Billy Woods, to determine whether Florida’s “stand your ground” law is in effect.
According to Woods, the law governing self-defense did not permit the shooting of Owens.
“It was simply a killing,” he said.
In an interview earlier Tuesday, Crump said there could be no justification for the killing.
“No way she should feel that this person knocking on the door would be able to cause death to her or imminent bodily harm,” Crump said. “And if she did feel fear, call the police. Why shoot through a metal door?”
Owens was a mother of four, the family attorneys have said.
Lorincz fired one shot through the door, the sheriff’s office said.
According to Crump, Owens’ kids had been playing in a field close to an apartment building when the lady who would shoot her yelled at them. According to him, the woman snatched an iPad that one of the kids had left behind.
An iPad was taken by a lady who was at the time labelled as a suspect, according to a sheriff’s incident report, which is redacted with the names blacked out.
According to a sheriff’s office incident report, deputies were responding to a call about trespassing that evening when they learned there had been a shooting. When they arrived, they saw Owens lying in the grass unresponsive from having been shot.
The sheriff claimed that the two women had previously engaged in conflict.
According to the sheriff’s office, manslaughter with a firearm is a felony punishable by up to 30 years in jail.
Late on Tuesday, it was unclear whether Lorincz had a lawyer who could represent her.
Ocala, which has a population of 63,000, is located 60 miles northwest of Orlando.
2 Comments
You have the victim listed as both a woman and a black man and you have the perpetrator listed as both a woman and a white man.
Sorry, our editor corrected it. Thanks