White woman who fatally shot Black neighbor through front door arrested on manslaughter and other charges
CBS News
June 7, 2023 (updated)

Ocala, Fla. — A White woman who fired through her front and killed a Black neighbor was arrested Tuesday, authorities said, in a case that's put Florida's divisive "stand your ground law" back in the spotlight. The shooting sparked widespread anger and protests.

The Marion County Sheriff's Office said Susan Lorincz, 58, was charged with manslaughter with a firearm and other offenses.

Ajike Owens, a 35-year-old mother of four, was killed Friday night in a shooting Sheriff Billy Woods said was the culmination of a 2-and-a-half-year feud between the neighbors. They lived in the rolling hills south of Ocala, a north Florida city that's the heart of the state's horse country.

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. But however, those laws I will follow."

The video shared by the sheriff's office shows two detectives and a deputy escorting Lorincz, who was wearing shorts, a black top and a jacket, down a hallway. The woman's hands were behind her back as she walked.

According to the sheriff's office, evidence showed that, over time, Lorincz had become angry over Owens' children playing in a field close to her apartment.

On Friday night, the office said, Lorincz got into an argument with the children and "was overhead yelling at them by a neighbor."

During the argument, the office continued, Lorincz threw a roller skate at Owens' 10-year-old son and hit him in a toe. The boy and his 12-year-old brother then went to speak to Lorincz, and she opened her door and swung at them with an umbrella. They told their mother what happened and "Owens approached Lorincz's home, knocked on the door multiple times, and demanded that Lorincz come outside. Lorincz then fired one shot through the door, striking Owens in her upper chest.

At the time she was shot, Owens' 10-year-old son was standing beside her," the sheriff's office noted.

Deputies responding to a trespassing call at the apartment Friday night found Owens suffering from gunshot wounds. She later died at a hospital.  

When questioned by the sheriff's office, Lorincz claimed she acted in self-defense and that Owens was trying to break down her door. "Lorincz also claimed that Owens had come after her in the past and had previously attacked her," the office continued.

But "detectives were able to establish that Lorincz's actions were not justifiable under Florida law" and she was arrested, the office said.

The manslaughter charge Lorincz is facing  is punishable by up to 30 years in prison, the office noted. She's also charged with culpable negligence, battery, and two counts of assault. Read more

It’s time for a new mayor of Ocala
Ocala Gazette
By Ocala Gazette Editorial Board
August 10, 2022

Next year, the voters of Ocala will once again choose their mayor. While no one has stepped forward to challenge longtime incumbent Kent Guinn, the time has come for the community to make a change.

Historically, the mayor’s duties have been largely ceremonial. The mayor has no vote on the Ocala City Council but does hold veto power. The pay is a nominal $550 a month.

However, there is one aspect of the job that literally involves life and death. Because of the structure of Ocala government, the mayor, not the city council, has sole oversight of the Ocala Police Department.

Guinn has failed miserably in his oversight of the city’s law enforcement agency and officers have suffered because of it.

The recent public revival of a series of incidents from 2016 involving then-Police Chief Greg Graham and female subordinates, one of whom is now a Marion County Commission candidate, should remind voters that as much as Guinn proclaims to "back the blue,’’ that support only goes so far and for certain officers.

This is simply not good enough for the boss of the department, who only answers to you, the voters. Read more

Mayor announces ‘Confederate Memorial Day.’ A city council member says it should cost him his job. 
The Washington Post
By Reis Thebault
April 5, 2019

A central Florida mayor said he wanted his city to know that he didn’t think there was anything wrong with celebrating a "Confederate Memorial Day" later this month. He also said he wanted people to know that he’s not racist.

Ocala Mayor Kent Guinn has made both assertions several times this week, after he signed a proclamation Tuesday at a Ocala City Council meeting declaring April 26 "a time in which to honor the memories of those who sacrificed their lives in the War Between States" — the Civil War sobriquet employed by followers of "Lost Cause" pseudohistory that seeks to whitewash slavery and Confederate atrocities.

After Guinn signed the order, which was not subject to a vote, council President Mary Sue Rich dissented.

"I’m not proud of you doing a Confederacy proclamation standing up here in front of all these people in the city of Ocala. That turns my stomach," Rich said at the end of the meeting, adding that she feels the declaration should disqualify Guinn from reelection. "I don’t think you deserve to be the mayor of Ocala. I hope somebody runs against you." Read more

UPDATE: Confederate flag flies again in Marion County
News 13, July 07, 2015

Marion County commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to put the Confederate flag back up at the county's government complex.

The flag was removed Thursday and temporarily replaced with a flag with the seal of Marion County.

County officials said the decision to remove the flag last week was in response to growing controversy surrounding the flag following the shooting deaths of nine black men and women at a historic church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17. The suspect, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, had posed with a Confederate flag in photos posted on a website that displayed a racist manifesto attributed to him.

After the deadly shootings, Marion County's interim county administrator, Bill Kauffman, consulted with County Commission Chairman Stan McClain and decided to remove the Confederate flag, which has flown outside the county's government complex for more than two decades.

Within minutes of Tuesday morning's vote, the Civil War-era flag was seen flying once again outside the government complex as one of the five national flags which have flown over Florida since European explorers first landed on its shores more than 500 years ago. The other four are Spanish, French, British and Read more

County removes Confederate flag from display in front of McPherson
Ocala Star-Banner
By Kristine Crane, Staff writer
June 29, 2015

Marion County administration has removed the Confederate flag that had been flying in front of the McPherson Governmental Complex.

"It was my decision as county administrator," Interim County Administrator Bill Kauffman said.

Kauffman conferred with County Commission Chairman Stan McClain in making the decision, but the Board of County Commissioners was not involved in it, said Barbra Hernandez, spokeswoman for Marion County.

"Obviously, Marion County is respectful of history," she explained about the decision. "We also understand the perceived connotations of displaying the flag at governmental agencies."

The flag was removed last week. Hernandez said the county didn’t receive any calls from residents asking officials to take the flag down.

But Joyce Blake, chair of the Marion County Democratic Party, did send County Commissioner Earl Arnett an email last week asking how many Confederate flags were displayed in front of government agencies in the county — and why they were displayed.

Blake on Monday morning said she still hasn’t received a response to her questions, though she has been provided confirmation that her email was received.

Hernandez said there are no other Confederate flags on display on county government property. Read more

FRUITLAND PARK -- Two officers with the Fruitland Park Police Department are off the job after an investigation linked them to the Ku Klux Klan. An investigation by the FBI named Deputy Chief David Borst and Cpl. George Hunnewell as members of the Klan.

Borst resigned, and Hunnewell was terminated Friday following a brief internal investigation, Fruitland Park Police Chief Terry Isaacs said. Hunnewell had been demoted from corporal in 2013 for five write-ups for conduct, attitude, performance and timeless, Isaacs said. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement presented an investigative summary from an FBI source to Isaacs on Wednesday, stating the officers were associated with a "subversive organization."

The investigation found no criminal wrongdoings.

"We are here, we are in place, and I want the public to know this type of conduct will not even be remotely tolerated," Isaacs said.

Isaacs said he plans to interview every police officer within the department and ask them about potential ties to subversive groups, which are against department policy.

Every case that Borst and Hunnewell worked will now be turned over for review by the State Attorney's Office, Isaacs said. more

Southern Poverty Law Center Active Ku Klux Klan Groups

White supremacy
Wikipedia

White supremacy or white supremacism is a form of racism centered upon the belief, and promotion of the belief, that white people are superior in certain characteristics, traits, and attributes to people of other racial backgrounds and that therefore whites should politically, economically and socially rule non-whites. The term is also typically used to describe a political ideology that perpetuates and maintains the social, political, historical and/or industrial domination by white people (as evidenced by historical and contemporary sociopolitical structures like the Atlantic Slave Trade, colonization of the Global South, Jim Crow laws in the United States, and miscegenation laws in settler colonies and former settler colonies like the United States, South Africa, Australia, and Madagascar, for example).[1] Different forms of white supremacism put forth different conceptions of who is considered white, and different white supremacists identify various racial and cultural groups as their primary enemy.[2] In academic usage, the term

"white supremacy" can also refer to a system where whites enjoy a structural advantage (privilege) over other ethnic groups, both at a collective and an individual level (ceteris paribus, i. e., when individuals are compared that do not relevantly differ except in ethnicity). Read more

"Between 1885 and 1930, nineteen black men were lynched in Marion County, nine of them for sexual offenses. Marion County lynchings were public affairs, often carried out before hundreds of witnesses, but none of the perpetrators was prosecuted."

"Marion County mobs sometimes left a placard or a sign attached to the body of the victim; when Robert Larkin was lynched in 1893, the mob left a placard reading, "Done by 300 of the best citizens of this county."

19 Confirmed Lynchings in Marion County, Florida, 1885-1932, from Appendix B, page 196.

1. Caesar Carooth, black male - lynched July 3, 1885
2. George Green, black male - lynched Dec. 12, 1887
3. Robert Larkin, black male - lynched July 12, 1893
4. Nero Young, black male - lynched May 15, 1894
5. William Jackson, black male - lynched Dec. 1, 1894
6. William Jones, black male - lynched Dec. 15, 1894
7. James Gilmore, black male - lynched March 15, 1897
8. James Miley, black male - lynched March 15, 1897
9. Ed Holmes, black male - lynched March 15, 1897
10. Otis Miller, black male - lynched March 16, 1897
11. Robert Alexander, black male - lynched June 9, 1899
12. Norman McKinney, black male - lynched Jan. 16, 1901
13. Preece Niles, black male - lynched Nov. 14, 1912
14. John Archie, black male - lynched Nov. 19, 1912
15. John Richards, black male - lynched February 17, 1915
16. Joseph Nimrod, black male - lynched Dec. 29, 1915
17. Richard Anderson, black male - lynched Jan. 28, 1916
18. Elijah Jones, black male - lynched Feb. 12, 1921
19. Chandler Colding, black male - lynched Jan. 11, 1926

Pages 72-73 "The tradition of lynching was also deeply rooted in the county. The author of a memoir of the community of Citra recalled the route taken by the local school bus in the 1920s: "it went through Cabbage Hammock, by Mr. Wartman's fence, and then by 'The Hanging Tree,' where it was not unusual to see pieces of frayed rope swaying from a stout limb, in the early morning light." [fn15]. Lynching seems to have had broad support among whites in Marion County."

Page 73, second paragraph, "Until the middle of the 1920s, the local press took a uniformly approving tone when reporting lynchings. When Elijah Jones was lynched for allegedly raping a seventy-year-old white woman and attempting to assault an eleven-year-old white girl, the Ocala Banner reported that three thousand people either participated in hanging Jones or viewed his body after the lynching." Page 73 continued...

"The Ocala Evening Star wrote a long article on the lynching, defending it in strident terms. According to the paper, Jones was a "bad nigger," a "filthy ruffian," a "rape fiend," and a "degenerate young devil." Those who lynched him were not a mob but "representative citizens, and they consider it their duty to rid their county of rapists and rattlesnakes as soon as possible." The mob members "understood all about" a remark Jones was reported to have made, "that he wanted white because he was tired of black. That is the inspiration of all the rape fiends, and the only thing to meet it with is hot lead and hemp." The paper scornfully dismissed an inquiry from the Associated Press concerning race troubles in Marion County, insisting that all was quiet and that everyone was going about their business as usual." [fn16, Ocala Banner, February 18, 1921,5; Ocala Evening Star, February 14,1921,1.]

Page 71, "The Ku Klux Klan was active in Marion County, and in one case lynched the suspected murderers of a white man, hanging the skeleton of one of their victims from a tree near Ocala." [fn6]
 

Pages 71-72, "A striking aspect of lynching in Marion County is the frequency with which mobs took their victims from the custody of law enforcement, apparently meeting little or no resistance. Of the fifteen cases in which I have been able to determine the circumstances of the suspect's capture by the mob, all but two involved suspects already in the custody of law enforcement officers."

Lynching in the United States
Wikipedia

Lynching, the practice of murdering people by extrajudicial mob action, occurred in the United States chiefly from the late 18th century through the 1960s. Lynchings took place most frequently against African-American men in the southern U.S. after the American Civil War and the emancipation of all slaves, and particularly from 1890 to the 1920s, with a peak in 1892. Lynchings were also very common in the Old West, where victims were primarily men of Mexican and Chinese minorities, although whites were also lynched.[1] Read more

Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror

Equal Justice Initiative
122 Commerce Street
Montgomery, Alabama 36104

Bryan Stevenson, Founder
And Executive Director

Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror documents EJI’s multi-year investigation into lynching in twelve Southern states during the period between Reconstruction and World War II. EJI researchers documented 3959 racial terror lynchings of African Americans in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia between 1877 and 1950 – at least 700 more lynchings of black people in these states than previously reported in the most comprehensive work done on lynching to date. Read more

EJI Reports: Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror. New York Times: History of Lynchings in the South Documents Nearly 4,000 Names. EJI Reports - Lynchings of African Americans by County. (18 lynchings in Marion County, Florida)

Neo-Confederate is a term used by some to describe the views of various groups and individuals who portray the Confederate States of America and its actions in the American Civil War in a positive light. See also: Lost Cause of the Confederacy.

Confederate History Month
Wikipedia

Confederate History Month is a month annually designated by six state governments in the Southern United States for the purpose of recognizing and honoring the history of the Confederate States of America. April has traditionally been chosen, as Confederate Memorial Day falls during that month in many of these states. Read more

Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821-1877) a lieutenant general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War...served as the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan...Forrest was accused of war crimes at the Battle of Fort Pillow for allowing forces under his command to massacre hundreds of black Union Army and white Southern Unionist prisoners...Wikipedia\

Confederate Memorial Day
Wikipedia

Confederate Memorial Day, also known as Confederate Decoration Day (Tennessee) and Confederate Heroes Day (Texas), is an official holiday or observance day in a number of states in the Southern United States as a day to honor those who died fighting for the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. Read more

Gov. McDonnell apologizes for omitting slavery in Confederacy proclamation

CNN News, April 9, 2010

(CNN) -- Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell apologized Wednesday for leaving out any reference to slavery in his recent proclamation designating April as Confederate History Month, calling it a "major omission."

"The failure to include any reference to slavery was a mistake, and for that I apologize to any fellow Virginian who has been offended or disappointed," McDonnell said in a written statement.

"The abomination of slavery divided our nation, deprived people of their God-given inalienable rights, and led to the Civil War," the statement said. "Slavery was an evil, vicious and inhumane practice which degraded human beings to property, and it has left a stain on the soul of this state and nation."

McDonnell also announced Wednesday that he would add language about slavery to the proclamation.

"(I)t is important for all Virginians to understand that the institution of slavery led to this (Civil) war and was an evil and inhumane practice that deprived people of their God-given inalienable rights," the new language says, "and all Virginians are thankful for its permanent eradication from our borders." Read more

Inscription on Johnny Reb, the Marion County Confederate Soldier Statue:

• The South Reveres Her Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Andrew Jackson, And Others, Who Laid The Foundations Of Our Grand Republic. She Honors Her Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Stuart, Johnson, Forest, And Every Brave Son Who Fought To Preserve Our Liberties, Guaranteed By The Fathers, Under The Constitution.

No mention of Abraham Lincoln, et al., just the slave-owning U.S. presidents: One in four U.S. presidents were slaveholders: 12 owned slaves at some point in their lives. Tellingly, 8 presidents owned slaves while living in the White House. Also noteworthy is Nathan Bedford Forrest a Confederate lieutenant general during the American Civil War...who served as the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan...Forrest was accused of war crimes at the Battle of Fort Pillow. The Constitution described on the Confederate statue means the original Constitution of 1789 that permitted slavery, not the U.S. Constitution and Thirteenth Amendment (1865), Fourteenth Amendment (1868), and Fifteenth Amendment (1870) in place when the statue was erected in 1908.

_________________________________________

The Gettysburg Address and equality, rejected by Marion County.

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth...a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal... Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation... can... endure...we here highly resolve...that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." - Abraham Lincoln

Military Order Of The Stars and Bars, Florida.
Marion County, Marion Dragoons #164

Newsletter Winter 2013, page 8: Lord, we give thanks to you for the blessing of being able to honor our ancestors who gave their all to protect us, defend our honor and uphold the original intent of our Constitution. (Slavery in the United States)

County prepares to move Confederate monument Ocala Star-Banner
By Bill Thompson, Staff writer
November 18, 2009

County administrator to create list of possible sites for statue.

The Confederate monument that stood guard in front of the Marion County Courthouse for nearly a century, only to be stuck in a corner two years ago as the facility was expanded, is likely moving. The question remains: more

• Confederate statue's new home: veterans park
• Florida Public Archeology Network, statue images

Confronting racism face-to-face - BBC News
Published on May 17, 2014 YouTube

Mo Asumang, daughter of a black Ghanaian father and a white German mother, talks to BBC News about her experiences making her new documentary, The Aryans, in which she confronts racists, both in Germany and among the Ku Klux Klan in America. Link to Facebook

Link to Wikipedia (German) Link to BBC News

Chapter 683 Florida Statutes (2014)

LEGAL HOLIDAYS; SPECIAL OBSERVANCES

683.01 Legal holidays.—
(d) Birthday of Robert E. Lee, January 19.
(j) Confederate Memorial Day, April 26.
(l) Birthday of Jefferson Davis, June 3.

Chapter 256 Florida Statutes FLAGS

256.051 Improper use or mutilation of state or Confederate flag or emblem prohibited.—

(1) It shall be unlawful for any person, firm, or corporation to copy, print, publish, or otherwise use the flag or state emblem of Florida, or the flag or emblem of the Confederate States, or any flag or emblem used by the Confederate States or the military or naval forces of the Confederate States at any time within the years 1860 to 1865, both inclusive, for the purpose of advertising, selling, or promoting the sale of any article of merchandise whatever within this state.

(2) It shall also be unlawful for any person, firm, or corporation to mutilate, deface, defile, or contemptuously abuse the flag or emblem of Florida or the flag or emblem of the Confederate States by any act whatever.

(3) Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent the use of any flag, standard, color, shield, ensign, or other insignia of Florida or of the Confederate States for decorative or patriotic purposes.

256.10 Mutilation of or disrespect for Confederate flags or replicas.—

No person shall publicly mutilate, deface, defile, defy, trample upon, or by word or act cast contempt upon the flags of the Confederacy, or replicas thereof, for crass or commercial purposes; provided however nothing contained herein shall be construed to prevent or prohibit the use of such flags for decorative or patriotic purposes.

September 27, 2016

President Barack Obama              
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama,

Mr. President, an African-American schoolgirl in Ocala, Florida may need assistance attending public school, which is a federally protected activity under 18 U.S.C. § 245(b)(2)(A).

Enclosed is a copy of my letter to Loretta E. Lynch, U.S. Attorney General. Something disrupted next day delivery of my letter to Attorney General Lynch, shipped on September 22, 2016, UPS tracking #1Z64589FNW92981779. FBI Director Comey got his letter delivered on time. But my letter to the Attorney General was misdirected to the Lafayette Building, Veterans Affairs, 811 Vermont Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20571. As I write this, my letter to the Attorney General still has not been delivered to the Department of Justice. I wrote Attorney General Lynch in part,

The Ocala Star-Banner reported January 29, 2016, "Racial incident at West Port: 3 students face discipline after taunts while waiving Confederate flags." Meanwhile, the black schoolgirl being intimidated by white supremacists with Confederate flags was wrongly cited in lieu of arrest.

U.S. Attorney Lee Bentley has jurisdiction, but there is no evidence USAFLM Bentley sought justice for the black schoolgirl intimidated by white supremacists with Confederate flags.  

Mr. President, long ago when I was a student in Levittown, Pennsylvania, the American Civil War was taught as a history lesson. Today in Ocala, Florida, the Lost Cause of the Confederacy is an ongoing current event. Too many folks here have not accepted the outcome of the American Civil War, including powerful people like lawyers, judges, and perhaps Mr. Bentley.

The murder of 9 African-Americans in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 17, 2015 was a time of change for many Americans on the Confederate flag issue. But not in Marion County. Instead, Ocala doubled-down on its support for the flag. Unfortunately Confederate flags were used in a racial incident at the West Port High School to commit a hate crime against an African-American student, as defined by Fla. Stat. § 775.085 Evidencing prejudice while committing offense; reclassification, because the offense involved the race/color of a black student by three white students who used Confederate flags in a threat of force, to injure, intimidate or interfere with the African-American student while she was attending public school. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Neil J. Gillespie                    

Ocala, Florida 34481

Confederate flag supporters flock to the 'Florida Southern Pride Ride' in Ocala: reports Ocala police investigating after shots fired near Confederate flag rally WFTV - Orlando, FL By Tobias Salinger, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, Monday, July 13, 2015, 6:04 AM

Racial incident at West Port  

Ocala Star-Banner

Jan 29, 2016

3 students face discipline after taunts waiving Confederate flag.

Three West Port High School students who taunted classmates on Thursday by waving Confederate flags during school will be disciplined, according to Marion County School District officials.

West Port High School Principal Jayne Ellspermann said moments after the white students — two boys and a girl — began taunting, an argument ensued and one black female student threw a punch at the taunters. Within a few minutes, teachers and the school's resource officer broke up the disturbance, which at that point was almost entirely verbal.

"Poor decisions of a few of our students led to this," said Ellspermann, adding that she was pleased with the quick response from staff to keep things from escalating. Read more

NOTICE: The videos below are presented in the public interest. Justice Network has not reviewed these matters, and makes no opinion as to the claims presented.

Left: Base of Johnny Reb, the Marion County Florida Confederate soldier statute.

The statue displayed the Confederate flag shown May 30, 2015, author's photo.