A Black mother of four in Florida was killed by a white neighbor who shot her through a front door as the victim attempted to retrieve an iPad taken from her child, the civil rights attorney Ben Crump has said.
In a Twitter post on Monday, Crump said the death of Ajike “AJ” Owens, 35, at a housing complex in Ocala on Friday evening was an “unjust killing” and lamented that the shooter had not been arrested or charged.
Billy Woods, the Marion county sheriff, was more cautious at a Monday afternoon press conference, telling reporters that the shooting appeared to be the culmination of a feud between the neighbors. Woods added that deputies had been called to the address “six to eight” times in two and a half years.
He said he was unable to confirm that Owens was attempting to recover an iPad when she was killed, but said the shooter had thrown a pair of skates towards Owens’s children before the fatal confrontation.
Woods said: “Somebody threw something at my child, I’d be pissed off, What parent wouldn’t be? Who wouldn’t be upset at that, regardless of whether they intentionally threw it at them or not?
“I wish our shooter would have called us instead of taking actions into our own hands. I wish Mrs Owens had called us in the hopes we could have never got to the point in which we are here today.”
Woods did not identify the shooter’s name, age or race, but added she was being “cooperative”. He urged patience from the community while the investigation continued, stating that not all the children who witnessed the incident had been interviewed yet.
Woods said: “We’re not cold-hearted bastards, we’re not going to interview children the night they possibly witnessed their mother being killed. We’re going to wait. We have to rely on professionals and experts counselors to sit down with them, [but] I’m here to assure the family and the friends that my office is going to do everything to bring justice.”
The incident occurred as several children were playing on the grass in front of a duplex building at the development, according to neighbors who spoke to the Ocala Star-Banner. A female resident emerged from one of the units, they said, threw something towards the children, scooped up an iPad and retreated inside.
One of the children told Owens what happened, the neighbor said, and she went to the woman’s door.
“She confronted her and, according to the one side, there was a lot of aggressiveness from both of them, back and forth, whether it be banging on the doors, banging on the walls and threats being made,” Woods said.
“And then, at that moment, it’s when Mrs Owens was shot through the door.”
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He said the investigation, when complete, would be presented to the Marion county state attorney’s office, which would decide if charges were warranted.
There have been several incidents in recent weeks in which people have been shot seemingly for being in the wrong place, or engaging in otherwise innocent behavior. In April, a woman riding in a friend’s car was shot and killed by a New York man who objected to the vehicle entering his driveway.
The same month in Texas, two cheerleaders were shot and wounded, one critically, after one of them attempted to open the door of a car she mistakenly thought was hers after they returned from an event.
That came days after Ralph Yarl, a Black 16-year-old, was shot and wounded through the front door of a house he’d mistakenly knocked at to pick up his siblings in Kansas City.
Charges were filed against the shooters in all three incidents.