Was Media Partially to Blame for Florida Woman's Killing? I Can't Rule It Out

AP Photo/Alan Diaz, File

For quite some time, Florida's Stand Your Ground law has been the subject of intense scrutiny. That first sprung up in the trial of George Zimmerman after he killed Trayvon Martin. A lot of people forget that the law was never invoked during Zimmerman's trial and didn't apply since it simply removed the requirement to try to escape and Martin was physically on top of Zimmerman. He couldn't have escaped even if he'd been in a retreat first state.

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Yet the media has been trying to present the law as legalizing murder, that all you need to do is pretend that you were scared for your life, and then you could get away with it. We've tried to tell them that they're wrong, but they don't listen to folks like Cam or me.

I bring this up because there was this case in Florida where a woman was just sentenced to killing another woman after shooting through a door, and she tried to claim she was afraid for her life.

A woman was sentenced on Monday to 25 years in prison after being convicted of manslaughter for shooting through her front door and killing her neighbor Ajike “AJ” Owens.

Susan Lorincz, 60, was convicted in August and on Monday the judge sentenced her to 25 years behind bars.

“I find that the shooting, when I listened to every aspect of the trial and every aspect of the sentencing here, the facts don’t rise to a murder charge but they are very aggravated manslaughter,” explained Judge Robert Hodges in his ruling. “The shooting was based, I find, more on anger than fear.”

In June 2023, Lorincz fired a shot through her front door striking Owens as she knocked on the door. Owens was attempting to confront Lorincz after she allegedly shouted at and threw something at her child.

Lorincz claimed self-defense arguing she feared Owens, who was unarmed, was going to kill her. The two had a history of disputes involving the children who often play in the neighborhood.

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Lorincz claimed she was terrified of an unarmed woman who confronted her after she threw something at the other woman's child.

Now, if you throw something at my kid, you'd have reason to be scared, but there was no indication that Owens was even capable of killing another while unarmed. There were no grounds for using deadly force. That's clear as day. Especially since it also appears that the door was locked at the time, meaning Owens couldn't even have gotten to her.

Yet the media has said all you have to do is claim that you were scared and you'd walk.

Unfortunately for Lorincz, that's not the case, but I can't help but wonder if she figured she could get away with it simply because the media had long told her she could. Such a belief would be quashed the moment she spoke with her attorney after the fact--although the idea that she was scared kept being brought up so maybe it wasn't--and she couldn't put the media on trial for steering her wrong, but even in the most recent link I posted, there's an idea that Stand Your Ground laws made this happen.

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It didn't.

Now, Lorincz is going away for a long time and, at 60 years old, it's unlikely she'll breathe free air again, possibly because media hysteria made her think she could get away with something.

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