AJ Owens’ Family Pushes For Hate Crime Charges Against Alleged Killer—Here’s What We Know About The Case

Topline

The family of Ajike “AJ” Owens, the Black Florida woman who was allegedly killed by her white neighbor last month, is pushing for the Department of Justice and Florida’s attorney general to bring hate crime charges against her neighbor–here’s where the case currently stands.

Key Facts

What To Watch For

Owens’ family pushed for the Florida attorney general’s office and the DOJ to review Owens’ case in an interview with ABC News. The state attorney general’s office told Forbes local law enforcement and prosecutors manage hate crime charges—under Florida’s hate crime statute, defendants can face stiffer penalties if their crime “evidences prejudice” based on race or some other category. Forbes has reached out to the DOJ and the state attorney’s office for comment.

Key Background

Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods said in a press conference unspecified incidents involving the address of Owens’ complex stretched back to January 16, 2021. In fact, Marion County police were responding to a trespassing call when they received another call about last month’s shooting. In a statement released on Facebook, police say Lorincz—who was 58 at the time of the shooting and is now 59 years old—was arguing with Owens’ 12-year-old and 10-year-old sons who were playing near her home. The argument, according to Marion County police, resulted in Lorincz throwing a roller skate at the 10-year-old, then when the younger boy and his older brother went to speak to her, “she opened her door and swung at them with an umbrella.” The boys told their mother of the incident, and Owens then confronted Lorincz by knocking on her door and asking her to come outside, to which police say Lorincz shot Owens in the upper chest through her door while her 10-year-old son was beside her. Police say that Lorincz told them she acted in self-defense for fear that Owens would “break down her door” and that Owens has attacked her in the past. Marion County Sheriff’s Office has not responded to Forbes request for comment on the viability of hate crime charges in this case.

Surprising Fact

Florida’s infamous Stand Your Ground Law permits residents to use “deadly force if he or she reasonably believes that using or threatening to use such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself.” However, Woods said the law “does not apply in all situations” and “was not justified” in this case, adding “it was simply a killing.”

Tangent

Hate crimes motivated by race, ethnicity and ancestry were committed more than any other bias category in Florida in 2020, data from the Justice Department found. Federal prosecutors regularly bring hate crime charges: Earlier this year, two men were sentenced to 5 years and 3 years respectively in federal prison for hate crime charges after they admittedly hurled racial slurs at and attacked a Black man in Citrus Springs, Florida. Last November, another man received two years in federal prison and three years of supervised release after the DOJ concluded that his attacks on a Black man in Seminole, Florida, were racially motivated. Last summer, a father and son received life plus seven years and ten years respectively, and another man received 35 years in prison, for killing Ahmaud Arbery in a racially motivated hate crime that was highly publicized when it happened three years ago in Georgia.

Further Readings

Family of Black mother fatally shot by neighbor urges DOJ to consider hate crime charges (ABC News)