Global Courant
A woman accused of fatally shooting her Florida neighbor in a dispute involving the murdered woman’s children was arrested Tuesday, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office said.
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 locked door in Ocala on Friday night, according to the sheriff’s office.
Ajike “AJ” Owens.@Ben Crump via Twitter
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents the Owens family, and others have demanded an arrest and raised questions about race and Florida’s “stand your ground” self-defense law.
“While we are relieved that the woman apparently responsible for the tragic murder of Ajike ‘AJ’ Owens has been arrested, we are no less concerned that accountability has taken so long because archaic laws such as Stand Your Ground exist,” lawyers said. of the Owens family. , including Crump, said in a statement Tuesday night.
The shooting happened around 9 p.m. Friday. Over time, Lorincz was angry at Owens’ children playing in a nearby field and “argued” with the children, the sheriff’s office said.
During the altercation, Lorincz threw a roller skate at Owens’ 10-year-old son and later waved an umbrella at him and a sibling, according to the sheriff’s office. Owens then knocked on Lorincz’s door several times, and Lorincz shot her through the door, the sheriff’s office said.
Owens was shot in the upper chest and died, it said.
Lorincz told investigators she acted in self-defense “and that Owens had tried to break down her door before firing her firearm,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
Sheriff Billy Woods said investigators were required by law to investigate whether Florida’s “stand your ground” law applied before making an arrest.
Woods said Owens’ murder was not justified under self-defense law.
“It was just murder,” he said.
In an interview earlier Tuesday, Crump said there could be no justification for the murder.
“There’s no way she should feel that this person knocking on the door could cause her death or imminent bodily harm,” Crump said. “And if she felt fear, call the police. Why shoot through a metal door?”
Owens was a mother of four, family lawyers have said.
Lorincz fired one shot through the door, the sheriff’s office said.
Crump said the Owens children were playing in a field near an apartment complex and the woman who would later shoot her yelled at the children. One of the children left behind an iPad, which the woman took, he said.
A sheriff’s incident report, which has been redacted with the names blacked out, states that deputies at the scene were told an iPad had been taken by a woman who was described as a suspect at the time.
Deputies had responded to a trespassing call that night when they were told there was a shooting, and they arrived to find Owens not breathing in the grass after being shot, according to a sheriff’s incident report.
According to the sheriff, there were fights between the two women in the past.
Manslaughter with a firearm is a felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison, the sheriff’s office said.
It was not immediately clear late Tuesday whether Lorincz had a lawyer who could speak on her behalf.
Ocala is a city of about 63,000 people located about 100 kilometers northwest of Orlando.
