Fla. officials investigate fatal shooting

OCALA, Fla. — Authorities came under intense pressure Tuesday to arrest and charge a white woman who killed a Black neighbor on her front doorstep in a case that has put Florida’s divisive stand your ground law back into the spotlight.

About three dozen protesters gathered outside the Marion County Judicial Center to demand that the shooter be arrested in the country’s latest flashpoint over race and gun violence.

A 35-year-old mother of four, Ajike Owens, was killed in the Friday night shooting that Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods said was the culmination of a 2½-year feud. The women lived in a neighborhood in north Florida, in the rolling hills south of Ocala, known as the state’s horse country.

On Tuesday, a stuffed teddy bear and bouquets of flowers marked the area near where Owens was shot. Protesters chanted, “No justice, no peace” and “A.J. A.J. A.J.,” using Owens’s nickname.

The sheriff said Owens was shot moments after going to the apartment of her neighbor, who had yelled at Owens’s children as they played in a nearby lot. He also said a neighbor had also thrown a pair of skates that hit one of the children.

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

Lauren Smith, 40, was on her porch and saw one of the Owens’s young sons pacing, yelling: “They shot my mama! They shot my mama!”

She ran toward the house, and started chest compressions until a rescue crew arrived. She said that there wasn’t an altercation, and that Owens didn’t have a weapon.

“She was angry all the time that the children were playing out there,” Smith said. “She would say nasty things to them. Just nasty.” Smith, who is white, said the neighborhood is “family friendly” and the fact that the shooter is claiming selfdefense is “outrageous.”