Pamela Dias, the bereaved grandmother of four children could not contain her emotions when she appeared on daytime TV talk show The View to talk about the daughter she buried on June 12.
According to the distraught matriarch, her first generation American-born Jamaican off-springs were playing in a park near Ocala, Florida when a white woman assailed their presence using racist threats before shooting and killing her child.
Local newspapers reported that the southern racist saw the youths playing and told them they did not belong on the property. Allegedly, she said ‘this is not the Underground Railroad (a reference to a path a brave Black Harriet Tubman travelled from south to north in order to free captive slaves).
Admittedly, Susan Louise Lorincz informed Marion County police she had used the N-word and other racist slurs to dissuade the children from playing near her residence.
She believed it was her right to talk in that manner.
However, she disclaimed the version the children gave that in addition to the foul-mouthed comments she had seized their playthings — a tablet and threw either a rollerskate or a skateboard that hit a child.
Conflicting reports were that after the confrontation the offended 58-year-old instructed the children to “call your mother.”
Apparently that’s when the youths scampered off to tell their parent/mother about their encounter with a neighbor reputed as a terrorizer of Black children.
Enraged by the disquieting affront, 35-year-old Ajike “A.J” Owens walked to the home of the woman — knocked on her door and was shot through a metal door and killed.
The Sheriff’s report states that Lorincz fired a single shot through the front door using a .380 caliber handgun.
Reportedly the youths watched as their mother fell to the ground and died. One tried to perform CPR but failed in his attempt.
“Grandma, grandma. I couldn’t save her,” Dias recalled the 12-year-old boy telling her.
“He witnessed his mother shot and killed. In his soul, and his heart, it’s his fault that his older brother, his baby sister, and his baby brother, as well as himself, will never see their mother again,” a tearful Dias explained.
Dias added that the children are now traumatized by the experience, the nine -year-old blames himself for taking the tablet to the park, the 12-year-old said he felt helpless he could not help his mom and the baby seems to be yearning for a missing caretaker.
Angry residents of Marion County protested the murder and latent action from the sheriff’s department.
Following relentless protest demonstrations and public outcry, four days later police arrested Lorincz on charges of manslaughter with a firearm, culpable negligence, battery and two counts of assault.
According to an arrest affidavit, Lorincz claimed she researched Florida’s stand your ground law and felt she was within her rights because she “felt threatened by the slaves.”
In the statement she said she acted in self-defense, because she thought Owens was trying to break down her door.
She added that she heard the victim threatening to kill her.
Lorincz cited details of her state’s stand your ground laws explaining she discharged her firearm because “she felt like she was in ‘mortal danger.”
Sheriff Billy Woods said that it was not a stand your ground case but “simply a killing” after a two and a half year feud by neighbors.
A Florida judge granted bail.
“My daughter, my grandchildren’s mother, was shot and killed with her 9-year-old son standing next to her,” Dias said.
“She had no weapon. She posed no imminent threat to anyone.”
On June 12, Rev. Al Sharpton eulogized the single parent by making comparisons to NY subway chokehold victim Jordan Neely who died from prolonged restraint by a self-proclaimed Good Samaritan Daniel Penny who plead in court that his action protected his and the welfare of other train riders.
Floridians who attended the funeral said they felt compelled to show solidarity with the deceased mother because of the nature of the tragedy but also because many are fans of Winston Dias, the grandfather of the slain victim.
Dias is renowned for his hit recording of “Sweet Sensation” with the Melodians singing group.
Civil Rights attorney Benjamin Crump has been retained to represent the family. Ironically, prior to the tragedy the NAACP called for a travel boycott to the southern state.
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