A white American woman was arrested in Florida on Tuesday, four days after she shot through her door and killed a black mother during a neighborhood dispute, police said.
Susan Lorincz faces 30 years in prison for manslaughter, the Marion County Sheriff’s Department said, which was slow to apprehend the suspect under a controversial law in force in that southeastern state.
According to her statement, the 58-year-old woman shot and killed 35-year-old Ajike Owens on Friday night in a long-standing dispute over his four children.
That day they were playing in a field near Susan Lorincz’s home in Ocala. According to a witness, she yelled at them before throwing a roller skate, which hit one of the boys. His 12-year-old brother then rang the doorbell of this neighbor, who chased him off with an umbrella.
He complained to his mother, who in turn went to the 50-year-old, knocked on her door and asked her to leave. Instead it shot through. Ajike Owens was fatally shot in the chest in front of her 10-year-old son.
It took four days for the gunman to be arrested because she was invoking a so-called “Stand Your Ground” law, which allows a person to use deadly force if there is imminent danger, even if there is another possibility of death to retreat, for example .
Susan Lorincz had asserted that her neighbor had tried to force her door open and had assaulted her in the past.
After gathering testimony, CCTV footage and other material, investigators “were able to determine that Ms. Lorincz’s actions were not warranted under Florida law,” the sheriff’s department said.
Lawyers for Ajike Owens’ family, who had been calling for his arrest since Friday, said they were relieved. “We are nonetheless concerned that it has taken so long for her to be held accountable,” Ben Crump and Anthony Thomas added in a statement.
A “stand your ground” law had already slowed prosecution for an octogenarian in Missouri who in April shot and killed a black teenager who accidentally rang his doorbell, they recalled, calling for the repeal of those outdated laws that “protect people with… mutilate and kill disproportionately dark skinned people”. .”