Global Courant
OCALA, Fla. – A white woman accused of fatally shooting her black neighbor through a door has a history of harassing children in the area and using racial slurs against them, neighbors said Wednesday.
Susan Louise Lorincz, 58, was arrested Tuesday on charges of manslaughter with a firearm, culpable negligence, battery and two counts of assault, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. Manslaughter with a firearm is a felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
The arrest came days after authorities said Lorincz shot Ajike “AJ” Owens, a 35-year-old mother of four, through a locked door in Ocala on Friday night. Owens’ 10-year-old son was standing next to her when she was shot, according to the sheriff’s office, which was criticized by civil rights attorney Ben Crump and the grieving family for the pace of the investigation.
It was not immediately clear whether Lorincz, who is incarcerated at the Marion County Jail, had an attorney to speak on her behalf.
In interviews with NBC News, neighbors recalled times they said the suspect taped their kids, taunted them, called the police, and brandished guns — just because they were kids.
Hours before the shooting, Franklin Colon was playing in a field with his son and other children when, he said, Lorincz gave him a middle finger.
Colon, who added that Owens was the first person to warn him about Lorincz when he moved into the neighborhood about two years ago, said the suspect started recording and yelling “all sorts of nonsense at me, at the kids, at everyone else. “
“Everyone in this neighborhood is arguing with this lady about our children”
Phyllis Wills, 33, has lived in the area for about 15 years. She knew Owens and knew Lorincz “because she always came out to harass our kids,” she said. “Everyone in this neighborhood has been arguing with this lady about our children.”
She said Lorincz had a problem with kids just being kids.
Susan Louise Lorincz was arrested on charges of manslaughter with a firearm, culpable negligence, battery and two counts of assault.The Marion County Sheriff’s Office
“Our children always played in the field there. It’s an apartment complex. These are kids who, you know, they’re going to do things. … Every time they’ve even gone into the lawn there, she’d say, ‘Get off my lawn, you son of a bitch or you moron or you N-word.’ She was brandishing guns at them,” Wills said.
Wills continued, “She recorded them every time she came out. She got in her truck and blew the radio as loud as she could to annoy the kids. She got in her truck and lay on the horn for a long time to annoying them, too She rushed over here in her truck, just crazy stuff.
She said she never called the police on Lorincz, but “stood in my yard and yelled at her because of the way she talks to the kids. But I never actually had a conversation with her. She wasn’t someone you can talk to.”
“Mom, Karen called the police today”
Sharna Mozell, 36, who has lived in the area for 12 years, said Lorincz was “a problem with the kids.”
Her 10-year-old daughter played outside most often with other children around.
Lorincz “always came out, and she was constantly recording them. And she just drops them off while she’s recording the kids and calling them by name,” says Mozell, the mother of four, ages 10 to 19 .
She added that Lorincz would bully children and was known in the neighborhood as a “Karen,” a sarcastic term for a white woman who harasses people of color and has a reputation for racism. Mozell said her younger daughter told her that Lorincz would record them and then contact authorities for playing.
“‘Mom, Karen called the police today,'” Mozell told her daughter.
She continued, “But the police never do anything… because we’re kids, we just play. I don’t get it, what was her motive or what was the problem?”
‘The lady shot my mother’
Colon was inside his home around 9 p.m. when he said he heard something that sounded like fireworks. His son told him that Owens had been shot and people nearby, including children, were crying.
According to the sheriff’s office, Lorincz was angry because Owens’ children were playing in the nearby field and “arguing” with the children.
During the altercation, Lorincz threw a skate at Owens’ 10-year-old son and later waved an umbrella at him and his sibling, according to the sheriff’s office. Owens then knocked on Lorincz’s door several times, and Lorincz fired one shot through the door, the sheriff’s office said.
Owens was hit in the upper chest and pronounced dead at a hospital, according to the sheriff’s office.
Colon said he resuscitated her until the police and ambulance arrived.
“When I saw her and everything, I thought, ‘Oh crap.’ I started scanning for open wounds. No exit wound, just a right upper chest (wound),” he said.
Colon checked to make sure Lorincz wasn’t there, he said, adding that she hadn’t come out after the shooting.
Wills was preparing dinner when one of Owens’ children knocked on her door.
“It was so loud, my windows were shaking,” she said. “So I thought, ‘Who cares? And I go and I opened the door and it’s Isaac, her eldest son, and he’s gasping for air. He can’t even barely talk. And he said, ‘The lady shot my mother!'”
“When he said that, I already know who he’s talking about because she’s the only person here who had a fight with the kids,” Wills added.
‘This world is really very dirty’
Crump, who represents the Owens family, and the slain woman’s relatives and loved ones have said that Lorincz had used racial slurs against Owens’ children prior to the fatal encounter.
One of the children left behind an iPad, which the woman took, he said.
A sheriff’s incident report, which has been redacted, states that deputies at the scene were told that 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 lying on the grass not breathing, according to a sheriff’s incident report.
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.
In an interview Tuesday, Crump said there can be no justification for the murder.
“She absolutely must not feel that this person knocking on the door could cause her death or imminent bodily harm,” he said. “And if she felt fear, call the police. Why shoot through a metal door?”
Mozell’s son, 18-year-old Jamerien Wilson, said he witnessed the aftermath of the shooting.
He said when he went outside he saw police cars everywhere and then saw Owens on the ground and someone performing CPR. He said he didn’t know what was happening at the time and didn’t know that Owens had been shot.
Wilson said he didn’t know Owens well, but knows her 12-year-old son because they would play basketball with other neighborhood kids.
“She never bothered anyone. She was absolutely always in the house doing what she had to do for her kids,” he said.
“You took this woman away from her children. … Just another black soul lost on Earth, you know. It’s just not what we need. Brother, this world is really, really mean,” added Wilson up to it.
‘The mood has changed’
At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Crump said he hopes prosecutors will consider upgrading Lorincz’s charge to murder and also consider testimony from neighbors who said their children were molested by the suspect.
“We are grateful to Sheriff Woods for the arrest. We don’t take that lightly, we don’t take it for granted. Because black people get justice quickly in America is not something that happens all the time,” Crump said.
“Even though we regret that it took four days, we understand that because … laws like stand your ground, it can make things more complicated,” the lawyer added.
Sheriff Billy Woods previously said detectives were required by law to investigate whether Florida’s “stand your ground” law applied before making an arrest.
He said Owens’ murder was not justified under self-defense law.
“It was just murder,” Woods said.
Pamela Dias, Owens’ mother, spoke to MSNBC on Wednesday and spoke at the press conference. Her grandchildren, who range in age from 3 to 12, have been affected “in so many ways” since their mother’s death, she said. Dias noted that Owens’ two boys, including a 9-year-old who saw his mother killed, blamed themselves for her death.
“In his soul, in his heart, it’s his fault,” she said, explaining how the child told his mother what Lorincz allegedly did prior to the shooting, which led to the confrontation.
Dias added: “Our 12-year-old blames himself for his mother’s death because he couldn’t save her. He couldn’t resuscitate her. His words were, ‘Grandma, Grandma, I couldn’t save her.’”
Mozell said the shooting also affected the neighborhood. Ocala is a city of about 63,000 people located about 100 kilometers northwest of Orlando.
“The mood has changed, the atmosphere has changed here. Nothing is really different, but you could feel it. It’s creepy now because it’s always been quiet. you’re not used to that kind of thing,” she said.
Minyvonne Burke reported from Ocala, Florida, and Antonio Planas from New York City.
