Beyond the Locked Door: What the Lorincz Case Reveals About “Stand Your Ground”
- WULR Team
- Nov 18, 2025
- 4 min read
How one neighborhood dispute reignited debate over self-defense and accountability
Published Novemeber 18th, 2025
Written by Sua Jo
When Ajike “A.J.” Owens knocked on her neighbor’s door in Ocala, Florida, she was unarmed and trying to protect her children. Moments later, a gunshot from the other side of the locked door ended her life. Susan Lorincz, the neighbor and shooter, claimed she fired in self-defense, invoking Florida’s controversial stand-your-ground law when the event transpired in June 2023, according to NBC News. Since then, the tragedy has become a national flashpoint — another test of how far the doctrine of self-defense should extend when “reasonable fear” meets deep social divisions. The case forces renewed scrutiny of laws that blur the lines between protection and provocation, challenging prosecutors to weigh fear against responsibility.
Florida enacted its stand-your-ground law in 2005, becoming the first state to explicitly remove the duty to retreat before using deadly force if a person “reasonably believes” it is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm. The statute, now codified in Florida Statutes §776.012, also provides immunity from arrest or prosecution when those conditions are met. Supporters say the law empowers citizens to defend themselves without hesitation. Critics argue it emboldens armed confrontation and expands immunity too broadly, however. In the years following its passage, Florida saw an estimated 24% to 27% increase in firearm homicides, according to a 2017 analysis by JAMA Network. The authors found no evidence that stand-your-ground laws deter crime, but clear evidence of increased violence. The debate, however, is as political as it is empirical.
According to NBC News, the fatal encounter between neighbors followed months of tension between Lorincz and neighborhood children who often played in the grassy area near her apartment. Witnesses said Lorincz had yelled racial slurs and thrown objects at the children. On June 2, Owens, a 35-year-old Black mother of four, walked to Lorincz’s door to confront her about taking her kid’s electronic tablet. Moments later, Lorincz fired a single bullet through the closed door, striking Owens in the chest as her 10-year-old son stood beside her. According to CNN, Sheriff Billy Woods stated that the stand-your-ground law did not apply because Owens posed no imminent threat. He also clarified that “the ‘stand your ground’ law did not justify firing through a locked door” and affirmed that “this situation is a prime example of when it was not justified…it was simply a killing.” Lorincz was arrested several days later on charges of manslaughter with a firearm, culpable negligence, battery and two counts of assault. At her 2024 trial, prosecutors argued Lorincz’s fear was not reasonable as she fired blindly through a door she could not see. The jury agreed. After just two hours of deliberation, Lorincz was convicted of manslaughter with a firearm, a verdict hailed by Owen’s family as “a measure of justice.”
Though Lorincz’s conviction may seem to affirm limits on self-defense, the case also highlights how elastic the stand-your-ground law can be. Under the statute, the shooter must have both a subjective belief of danger and an objectively reasonable basis for that belief. In practice, that distinction often collapses under the weight of human bias. According to a 2013 Urban Institute study, they found that homicides with white shooters and Black victims were 281% more likely to be ruled justified than cases with Black shooters and white victims. The data suggest that “reasonableness” may depend less on facts than on perception, essentially, ‘who is seen as a threat’, and who is not. Civil rights advocates warn that this uneven application undermines equal justice under the law. According to ABC News, Rev. Al Sharpton condemned what he called “systemic flaws” in Florida’s justice system at Owen’s funeral, arguing that if a Black woman had shot a white child, “they would have arrested her that night.” He criticized the double standard in how outrage and accountability are distributed, saying some people “get outraged about certain things taught in school” but stay silent when a Black mother is killed.
Wisconsin law provides a marked contrast through Statute §939.48. While Wisconsin also allows the use of deadly force in self-defense, it does not grant automatic immunity from prosecution. Instead, defendants may argue self-defense at trial, and prosecutors must disprove it beyond a reasonable doubt. This structure ensures judicial oversight rather than preemptive immunity, which is a safeguard Florida’s model lacks. By contrast, stand-your-ground laws place the decision of immunity and arrest eligibility in the hands of law enforcement and pre-trial screenings. According to the Giffords Law Center, these laws reduce accountability by granting “front-end” protections to shooters, limiting arrests and inhibiting investigations. Moreover, the public-facing rhetoric of stand-your-ground often clashes with the complex realities of assailant-victim interaction. In situations like Lorincz’s, where the “threat” was a neighbor knocking on a door, the doctrine seems stretched beyond recognition.
The verdict in State of Florida v. Lorincz may reassure those who feared another exemption under the stand-your-ground law, but the larger conversation is far from settled. The law remains on Florida’s books, and similar statutes exist in over 30 states. Supporters maintain that citizens should not be punished for defending themselves, whereas others insist the law erodes accountability and fuels avoidable violence. Owen’s mother, Pamela Dias, expressed to USA Today that “the pain has not subsided” and that she misses her daughter tremendously. Her comments echoed the broader concern voiced by civil rights advocates that these statutes, intended to protect victims, too often blur the line between defense and aggression. As communities continue to grapple with the meaning of safety and justice, the question lingers: When fear meets a firearm, whose life does the law truly defend?
