Source: Family / Family provided
This story is nowhere near done, but at least now Ajike “AJ” Owens can rest.
The Ocala, Florida mother of four was remembered, celebrated, mourned and lifted up as a tragic example of how racist and purposely cruel people in America can act toward Black bodies. As far as we’re concerned, Ajike Owens was murdered in cold blood. Let the legal system tell it, Owens was a victim of “manslaughter.” More on that later.
According to Fox35 Orlando, Owens’ homegoing service was held at Meadowbrook Church where Rev. Al Sharpton gave her eulogy as personally requested by Ajike’s mother Pamela Dias. In typical Reverend Al fashion, the long-time civil rights leader cut right to the heart of the matter.
“The world needs to know that we shouldn’t be here for a funeral this morning. They want to bury what happened to AJ, but we’re not going to be quiet about it,” he declared. “We’re not going away quietly because what happened here is wrong. We have come to stand with this family and to call wrong, wrong.”
Sharpton also took the opportunity provided by his bully pulpit to hit Florida governor and Presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis with a two-piece and a biscuit.
Taking a critical stance on the state of Florida, Sharpton declared, “Florida is where woke dies. What is the opposite of woke? To be asleep. We’re not going to sleep anymore. Maybe we took a nap, but we are awake now. You will not ever get away with this.”
Below, you can watch the entire ceremony including Rev. Al’s full remarks.
Ajike Owens’ Family Not Satisfied With Manslaughter Charge
Justice only serves as a true reckoning when a specific thing is called a specific thing. One does not feel made whole if the man who acted as a thief is merely called a trespasser. As mentioned above, there is very little that could be done to convince us that Ajike Owens’ death is not murder. According to a Yahoo! News report, the family and their attorney feels the exact same way. Anthony Thomas spoke directly to the manslaughter charge that essentially turns Susan Louise Lorincz‘s violent, hateful, purposeful act into some sort of…unfortunate happenstance. No, nope, nah, hell naw, hell f**k nah.
“The family doesn’t feel as though this was an accident,” Thomas said. “Or if, you know, Susan was just cleaning her gun and bullet, you know, the gun fires and it ends up going through the door and killing someone. That’s not what happened at all.”
Thomas continued.
“She meant to point that gun at the door, she knew who was standing on the [other] side of that door and she also knew that she didn’t have any sort of threat on her life when she pulled that trigger,” Thomas said. “And so we feel as though because Susan did not have any respect for human life whatsoever, it should be a murder two (second-degree murder) charge. And so right now, our goal is to make sure that we keep pushing for the State’s Attorney’s Office to investigate the murder two charge.”
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