AP – A white woman in Florida, United States (US) who fatally shot a Black neighbour through her front door during an ongoing dispute over the neighbour’s boisterous children faces sentencing for her manslaughter conviction.
Susan Lorincz, 60, was convicted in August of killing 35-year-old Ajike ‘AJ’ Owens by firing a single shot from her .380-caliber handgun in June 2023. Lorincz faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in state prison because a firearm was used.
The shooting was the culmination of a long-running argument between the two neighbours over Owens’ children playing in a grassy area at both of their houses in Ocala, about 130 kilometres northwest of Orlando.Prosecutors said Owens had come to Lorincz’s home after her children complained that she had thrown roller skates and an umbrella at them, which Lorincz denied. Trial testimony showed Owens, a mother of four young children, was pounding on Lorincz’s door and yelling, leading Lorincz to claim self-defence in shooting her neighbour.
Lorincz told detectives in a videotaped interview that she feared for her life. She also said she had been harassed for most of the three years she lived in the neighbourhood.
“I thought I was in imminent danger,” she said.
But jurors did not agree with her self-defence claim.
Owens’ family pushed for the maximum prison sentence after Lorincz was convicted by an all-white jury.
