That means authorities have to rule out self-defense before bringing charges. In 2017, Florida lawmakers updated the state’s self-defense statute to shift the burden of proof from a person claiming self-defense to prosecutors. “We’ve seen this again and again across this country,” she said, adding that “it’s really because of lax gun laws and a culture of shoot first.”įerrell-Zabala said stand your ground cases, which she refers to as “shoot first laws,” are deemed justifiable five times more frequently when a white shooter kills a Black victim. She described the fatal shooting as “so senseless.” “I’m absolutely heartbroken,” Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, told The Associated Press.

“Whether it be banging on the doors, banging on the walls and threats being made. “There was a lot of aggressiveness from both of them, back and forth,” the sheriff said the shooter told investigators. The sheriff said that since January 2021, deputies responded at least a half-dozen calls in connection with what police described as feuding between Owens and the woman who shot her. Just nasty.” Smith, who is white, described the neighborhood is family friendly. “She was angry all the time that the children were playing out there,” Smith said. She said there wasn’t an altercation and that Owens didn’t have a weapon. She ran toward the house, and started chest compressions until a rescue crew arrived. She was on her porch that day and saw one of Owens’ young sons pacing, and yelling, “They shot my mama, they shot my mama.” Lauren Smith, 40, lives across the street from where the shooting happened. The sheriff’s office hasn’t confirmed there were slurs uttered or said whether race was a factor in the shooting.

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