The white woman who fatally shot her Black neighbor was finally arrested Tuesday after authorities said her actions were not protected by Florida’s stand your ground law.
Last Friday, Susan Louise Lorincz, a 58-year-old white woman, killed her Black neighbor, Ajike “AJ” Owens, a mom to four children, reportedly after Lorincz threw skates at the children and was upset about them playing outside, according to the sheriff’s office.
Lorincz was not immediately taken into custody after the Friday shooting, prompting approximately “three dozen protestors, most of them Black, [to] gather outside the Marion County Judicial Center, demanding the shooter’s arrest.”
Lorincz was taken into custody on Tuesday and arrested on charges of manslaughter with a firearm, culpable negligence, battery and two counts of assault.
Lorincz will appear in court for the first time on Thursday and is currently being held in a Mario County Jail cell.
The deadly interaction occurred after “there had been a dispute over a child’s electronic tablet device prior to the shooter throwing the skates at the children.” After one of the children went back inside their home and relayed what happened to their mother, Owens went to Lorincz’s home to address the matter.
Lorincz then fatally shot Owens through the door, and she ended up dying at the hospital from her injuries.
Lorincz says there “was ‘a lot of aggressiveness’ from both sides, as well as threats being made” over a period of time.
Attorneys for the Owens family “also accused Lorincz of yelling at Owens’ children and calling them racial slurs prior to the shooting.”
Pamela Dias, Owens’ mother said, “My daughter, my grandchildren’s mother, was shot and killed with her 9-year-old son standing next to her,” adding “She had no weapon, she posed no imminent threat to anyone.”
During interviews, Lorincz tried to allege that she was acting in self-defense because Owens was trying to break down her door. Under Florida’s “stand your ground law,” people are allowed “to respond with deadly force if they reasonably believe they are being threatened with death or serious injury, and says they don’t have to retreat if they’re ‘not engaged in a criminal activity and … in a place where he or she has a right to be.’”
But, the sheriff’s office refuted Lorincz’s claims, stating “Through their investigation – including obtaining the statements of eyewitnesses who only came forward as late as yesterday – detectives were able to establish that Lorincz’s actions were not justifiable under Florida law.”
Sheriff Billy Woods said, “Here’s what I wish: I wish our shooter would have called us instead of taking actions into her own hands. I wish Ms. Owens would have called us, in hopes we could have never got to the point in which we are here today.”
At the press conference, Woods asked people to “Pray for those children. Pray for each and every one of them,” saying, “Their life has changed.”
To date, the GoFundMe page created to support the Owens’ family and children she left behind has raised more than $150,000.