Sheriff Billy Woods, the chief of the Marion Country Sheriff Office and an integral part of the law enforcement who investigated the killing of Ajike Owens by her neighbour Susan Lorincz, says that Owens’ death was not motivated by Lorincz racism. The death of Ajike Owens is the subject of The Perfect Neighbor documentary on Netflix – where the build up to her getting shot by Susan Lorincz is revealed in harrowing footage shot entirely on law enforcement body cam. The comments from Sheriff Woods have received backlash due to the fact Susan Lorincz is seen in The Perfect Neighbor using racial slurs.
Sheriff Woods insists it wasn’t to do with race
@newsnationnowFour days was “absolutely not” an inordinate amount of time for Susan Lorincz, the subject of Netflix documentary “The Perfect Neighbor,” to be arrested for the murder of Ajike Owens, Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods tells “Banfield.” He says waiting to prove it wasn’t a “Stand Your Ground” case ensured the case would not be thrown out in court.♬ original sound – NewsNation
In the documentary, the police department faces huge pressure after waiting four days to declare whether the US’ ‘stand your ground’ laws would cover Lorincz shooting Owens. Eventually in The Perfect Neighbor, Sheriff Woods was the one who came out and declared that the law didn’t apply and it was simply just a killing.
Speaking to Ashley Banfield on NewsNation, Sheriff Woods was asked if the death had a racial component to it – and raises the question that because Lorincz was white that’s why she got four days before being arrested and if that was an inordinate amount of time.
Sheriff Woods says “Here’s what people don’t understand. Let me first start with the BLM – it had nothing to do with any racial. I’ve said from the beginning and I’ll say it again on camera now for you. Do I believe that Lorincz was probably racist? There’s a very good possibility. Do I think it was racially motivated? Absolutely not.
“Some of my frustration is being pressured for something because here’s a case, this is what everyone’s got to understand, this is a very important case. This is where you do not want to make a mistake. You do not want your detectives you don’t want anybody to make something that they forgot to cross the ‘t’ or dot the ‘I’ that gets it thrown out in court.
“When it comes to Florida’s stand your ground law – it got changed. It’s been changed a couple of times over the years. But it specifically says in there that the investigating law agency must first, before making any other charges, must first disprove stand your ground. That burden is on us and law enforcement and we can be held accountable if we don’t do that.
“Four days, absolutely not. What that means is my detectives meticulously took the time to analyse every thing that was done so no defence attorney can say that’s stand your ground. In the beginning was I confident that stand your ground didn’t exist? Absolutely. But we had to prove it.”
Susan Lorincz was eventually found guilty of manslaughter for
The Perfect Neighbor is available on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news and drops, like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.
