A protester holds a poster of Ajike Owens at the Marion County Courthouse, Tuesday, June 6, 2023, in Ocala, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
OCALA, Fla. (AP) — A Florida woman accused of fatally shooting her neighbor last week in the violent culmination of what the sheriff described as a 2½-year feud was arrested Tuesday, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office said.
Susan Louise Lorincz, 58, who is white, was arrested on charges of manslaughter with a firearm, culpable negligence, battery and two counts of assault in the death of Ajike Owens, 35, a Black mother of four, Sheriff Billy Woods said in a statement.
Authorities came under pressure Tuesday to arrest and charge the woman who fired through her front door and killed Owens in a case that has put Florida’s divisive stand-your-ground law back into the spotlight.
In a video posted on Facebook late Tuesday night, the sheriff said this was not a stand-your-ground case but “simply a killing.”
“Now many of you were struggling to understand why there was not an immediate arrest,” the sheriff said. “The laws here in the state of Florida are clear. Now I may not like them. I may not agree with them. … However, those laws I will follow.”
Earlier the sheriff had said that because of the stand-your-ground law he couldn’t make an arrest unless he could prove the shooter did not act in self-defense.
The video shared by the sheriff’s office shows two detectives and a deputy leading down a hallway with her hands behind her back.
Jail records show she was booked, but did not list a lawyer who could speak on her behalf. It wasn’t immediately clear when she would make her first court appearance.
Deputies responding to a trespassing call Friday night found Owens with gunshot wounds.
The neighborhood of single-story duplexes and quadruplexes is in the rolling hills outside of Ocala. The area is known for its thoroughbred horse farms, which surround the working-class neighborhood.
Lorincz told investigators that she acted in self-defense, that Owens had been trying to break down her door before she fired the gun, the sheriff said. She also told them that Owens had previously attacked her.
Sheriff Woods said the investigation, which included eyewitness statements, established that Lorincz’s actions were not justifiable under Florida law.
On Tuesday, about three dozen protesters, most of them Black, gathered outside the Marion County Judicial Center, demanding the shooter’s arrest. The chief prosecutor, State Attorney William Gladson, met with the protesters and urged patience while the investigation continues.
The sheriff said Owens was shot moments after going to Lorincz’s apartment to confront her over yelling at Owens’ children as they played in a grassy area nearby. He also said Lorincz had thrown a pair of skates that hit one of the children.
Before the confrontation, Lorincz had been yelling racial slurs at the children, according to a statement from civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Owens’ family. He also represented Trayvon Martin’s family in 2012, when the Black teenager was killed in a case that drew worldwide attention to the state’s stand your ground law.
The sheriff’s office hasn’t confirmed there were slurs uttered or said whether race was a factor in the shooting.
Lauren Smith, 40, lives across the street from where the shooting happened. She ran toward the house, and started chest compressions until a rescue crew arrived. She said there wasn’t an altercation and that Owens didn’t have a weapon.
“She was angry all the time that the children were playing out there,” Smith said of Lorincz. “She would say nasty things to them. Just nasty.” Smith, who is white, described the neighborhood as family-friendly.
The sheriff said that since January 2021, deputies responded at least a half-dozen calls in connection with what police described as feuding between Owens and Lorincz.
“There was a lot of aggressiveness from both of them, back and forth,” the sheriff said Lorincz told investigators.”
In 2017, Florida lawmakers shifted the burden of proof from a person claiming self-defense to prosecutors. Before the change in law, prosecutors could charge someone with a shooting, and then defense attorneys would have to present an affirmative defense for why their client shouldn’t be convicted. Now authorities must rule out self-defense before bringing charges.
Stand your ground and “castle doctrine” cases — which allow residents to defend themselves either by law or court precedent when threatened — have sparked outrage amid a spate of shootings across the country.
In April, 84-year-old Andrew Lester, a white man, shot and injured 16-year-old Ralph Yarl, a Black teenager who rang his doorbell in Kansas City. Yarl mistakenly went to the wrong house to pick up his younger siblings. Lester faces criminal charges. At trial, he may argue that he thought someone was trying to break into his house.
Missouri and Florida are among about 30 states that have stand your ground laws.
The most well-known examples of the stand your ground argument came up in the trial of George Zimmerman, who fatally shot Trayvon Martin in 2012.
Originally published at The Associated Press