In the same statement, Lorincz maintained that she was confused on the night of the shooting because of Owens’s screams.
According to People, Owens’s mother, Pamela Dias, called the apology “a last-ditch attempt to save herself. It wasn’t sincere; she never showed remorse.”
Has Ajike Owens’s family responded to the documentary?
Owens’s family is supportive of the documentary, and worked with director Geeta Gandbhir regarding what footage would be shown in the final cut — including the devastating scene where Owens’s children learn that their mother did not survive her gunshot wound.
In an interview with USA Today, Gandbhir said, “If we allow things like this to remain in the dark and we don’t shine a light on them, they will continue to happen.… But when people bear witness, they are often inspired to take action.”
In the wake of Owens’s death, her mother, Pamela Dias, and her best friend’s sister, Tameka Robinson, cofounded the Standing in the Gap Fund nonprofit, which aims to “respond to the trauma of race-based violence by easing financial burdens and supporting healing,” per the organisation’s website. The Standing in the Gap Fund calls The Perfect Neighbour “a call to witness, to grieve, and to act” and features a toolkit for hosting a community gathering to watch the film.
Robinson told CNN that the Standing in the Gap Fund invests in the arts “as tools for justice and healing.” Added Dias, “The Fund was born out of that need — to transform grief into action.”
Where are Owens’s children now?
Owens had four children: Isaac, 14, Israel, 12, Afrika, 9, and Titus, 6. Per CNN, the children are now living with their grandmother, Pamela Dias, who moved to Ocala, Florida, to raise them.
“The pain has not subsided,” Dias told USA Today of her own grief. She added that the children are “still very much in pain, but they’re very resilient.”
In the wake of the shooting, as seen in the documentary film, Owens’s two older sons, Isaac and Israel, struggled with feelings of guilt over their mother’s death. At the time of Lorincz’s trial, a representative for the family told CNN that the children were in counselling.
Does Florida still have stand-your-ground laws?
Yes, the law is still in effect in Florida, as well as 29 more states across the US, per Newsweek. Florida was the first state to enact the law in 2005.
In an interview with PBS, Robert Spitzer, professor emeritus of political science at SUNY Cortland, said “numerous studies” have found that the law is correlated with an increase in homicide and gun homicide.
There is also a “race problem” in the way the law is enforced, said Spitzer. If a white person kills a Black person and uses a stand-your-ground defence, Spitzer said, “that claim is much more likely to be accepted than the reverse.”
This article originally appeared on Glamour (US).