'Stand your ground' back in spotlight after neighbor fatally shoots Ajike Owens through door

A controversial self-defense law is back in the spotlight after Ajike “AJ” Owens, a Black mother of four, was shot and killed through a closed door in Ocala, Fla., on Friday following a dispute with her neighbor.

“These children have lost their mother in cold blood,” the family’s lawyer Anthony Thomas said during a press conference on Monday. “This unjustified killing was done in front of the children, the children are the witnesses.”

Authorities have not made any arrests and say that Florida’s “stand your ground” law is a crucial piece of the puzzle in this case. Before an arrest can be made, “he [Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods] needs probable cause, that’s what he told me,” Thomas said.

According to Woods, Owens’s children were playing outside nearby and the shooter threw a pair of skates that hit one of them. Owens was confronting the neighbor when she was fatally shot.

“I wish our shooter would have called us instead of taking actions into her own hands,” Woods said during a news conference on Monday.

Since 2021, Owens, 35, and the shooter, who is white, have reached out to the police a number of times, according to Woods, who added that law enforcement has responded to at least six to eight incidents. “This has been a neighborhood feud over time,” he said.

The sheriff’s office has not released the name of the shooter.

What happened to Ajike ‘AJ’ Owens?

On June 2, a 58-year-old white woman yelled racial slurs at Owens’s children, who are between 3 and 12 years old, while they were playing in a field near an Ocala apartment complex, according to a press release by civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who has been retained by the family along with Thomas.

“The children left but accidentally left an iPad behind, which the woman took. When one of the children went to her residence to retrieve it, she threw it, hitting the boy and cracking the screen,” the press release states.

After this incident, Owens’s children allegedly told their mother what happened and she approached the shooter’s home.

“[Owens] knocked on the door once. When there was no answer she simply replied, ‘I know you hear me.’ There was no confrontation. At the time that was said the shot rang,” Thomas said.

But Woods says that according to one side of the story, “there was a lot of aggressiveness back and forth — and at that moment [Owens] was shot through the door.” It wasn’t immediately clear whose account Woods was referring to.

In an interview with Joy Reid, Pamela Dias, Owens’s mother, says her daughter approached the home unarmed and just wanted answers. “My daughter did what any parent would do, want to talk to the adult to find out why she had his belongings, why she threw items at her child,” she said.

Does ‘stand your ground’ apply?

Woods says that law enforcement can not make an arrest because of Florida’s “stand your ground” law.

“What we have to rule out is whether this deadly force was justified or not before we can even make the arrest,” he explained. “And sometimes it becomes difficult and sometimes it becomes an obstacle. But only a temporary obstacle because it will be moved and the final answer will come forward.”

Cynthia Ward, a law professor at William and Mary and a “stand your ground” expert, told Yahoo News that “from the facts available so far, this does not appear to be a valid case for a ‘stand your ground’ defense.”

“Stand your ground” allows an individual to use force against a person they believe puts them in imminent danger. “And the ‘stand your ground’ provision means that if those conditions apply, then they don’t have to try to retreat, even if they knew they could safely retreat before using deadly force against the other person,” she said.

Since Owens was shot through a closed door, Ward said, it seems “improbable” that the shooter would have a defense, based on the current information available.

But Bill Sheaffer, a legal expert for Channel 9, a local Florida news outlet, says the “stand your ground” law could be a factor in this case, adding that the sheriff’s “hands are tied.”

“Since the law provides greater protection for an individual that’s in their home or in an automobile to use deadly force, one could argue that she was justified if she was in fear that this woman was breaking into her home,” he said.

‘Shoot first and think later’

Florida was among the first states to pass “stand your ground” legislation, in 2005, and now dozens of states across the country have similar laws in place.

Over a decade ago, the legislation sparked outrage when Trayvon Martin, a Black teenager who was walking home from the convenience store, was fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, who claimed self-defense.

Most recently, “stand your ground” drew national attention after Ralph Yarl, a Black teenager from Kansas City, Mo., was shot after he knocked on the wrong door to pick up his younger siblings. Four days later, the shooter was arrested on two felony charges of first-degree assault and armed criminal action. Missouri has a “stand your ground” law that, like Florida’s, does not require a person to retreat from danger.

“I think there’s widespread misunderstanding of what ‘stand your ground’ provisions mean,” Ward said. “My fear is that people have mistaken ‘stand your ground’ provisions for ‘shoot first and think later’ provisions, and they are not meant to be that.”

Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action, an organization dedicated to gun safety, says America’s lack of gun laws has created a deadly environment for Black people.

“Yet again, thanks to our country’s lax gun laws and hate-fueled violence, four children will grow up without a mother,” Ferrell-Zabala told Yahoo News. “All for what? ‘Stand your ground’ laws and the ‘shoot first’ culture they instill continue to put Black people and people of color in danger. These laws empower shooters to instigate violence or act on unjustified fear — and then claim self-defense and avoid accountability.”

What’s next?

As Owens’s children grieve her death, advocates and community members are calling for an arrest.

“These children are never going to forget what happened to their mother,” Thomas said.

Jerone Gamble, the first vice president of the Marion County Chapter of the NAACP, says he understands there is a legal process that must take place but that there is “absolutely no reason for that kind of murder.”

“She killed this young woman by shooting her through the door. If this isn’t stopped, you’re going to be walking down the street and they’re going to shoot you through the window,” he said.