A white Florida woman who fatally shot a Black neighbor through her front door during an ongoing dispute over the neighbor’s boisterous children faces sentencing Monday for her manslaughter conviction.

Susan Lorincz, 60, was convicted in August of killing 35-year-old Ajike “A.J.” 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 neighbors over Owens’ children playing in a grassy area at both of their houses in Ocala, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of Orlando.

  • actually@lemmy.world
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    27 days ago

    I followed this news story and “a long running argument” between two people was not my takeaway ?

    • statler_waldorf@sopuli.xyz
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      27 days ago

      Yeah, it seemed like a disturbed old lady hurling abuse and calling the cops on everyone in the neighborhood, especially the kids who were playing in an empty yard, that she did not own, next door to the woman’s apartment. The kids had permission from the owner of the land and he even played sports with them there.

      There’s video of her trying to get the cops to trespass a man out of the parking lot while they interviewed him about a prior complaint she made against the kids playing.

    • snooggums@lemmy.world
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      27 days ago

      ‘Long running argument’ is not referring to the one encounter when she murdered her neighbor, but the ongoing conflict across a long period of time like months or years.

      • actually@lemmy.world
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        27 days ago

        she had long running arguments with most of her neighbors and the person killed was not in “greater argument” than the many kids and adults who were verbally abused over years.

        This is my mini hill I am standing on today: AP press normalized a neighborhood terror.

        • snooggums@lemmy.world
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          27 days ago

          I was commenting on only the duration off the ‘argument’. They certainly minimized her shitty behavior, and I used ‘murdered’ intentionally to counter that.

          I’ll help you defend that hill.

    • HellsBelle@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      In the video of her first interrogation, shown to jurors Wednesday, Lorincz tells detectives she’d previously argued with Owens about her children playing loudly and leaving toys outside her home. But she tells police the situation escalated on June 2, 2023, after she confronted the children about the noise and threw their roller skates. CNN

      The confrontation was the latest in a dispute between Lorincz and Owens over the latter’s children playing in a grassy area near both of their houses. Lorincz said in the interview she had been harassed for most of the three years she lived in the neighbourhood. AP

      Woods said the shooting happened during an apparent “neighborhood feud” that had been going for sometime between the suspect and the victim.

      Records show that 911 had been called a half-dozen times since 2021 involving Lorincz and Owens. In two cases – February 2022 and April 2023 – Lorincz called 911 because she was upset that Owens’ dog was on her property, and called months later to report that Owens had repeatedly opened her mailbox. She told deputies, according to the report, that she was not missing any mail. Fox

      • actually@lemmy.world
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        27 days ago

        That simply does not represent the sheer terror, the troublemaking of op. It’s a partial snapshot. This woman terrorized her neighbors for years

        • HellsBelle@sh.itjust.worksOP
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          27 days ago

          You said …

          I followed this news story and “a long running argument” between two people was not my takeaway ?

          My reply listing media quotes was to that.

          • actually@lemmy.world
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            27 days ago

            Fair enough, but I was all riled up over those two words on an otherwise excellent article.

            I just happen to think those two words are very important