The family of a single Black mother fatally shot over the weekend in central Florida wants justice in her case and is demanding that the local sheriff’s office swiftly move to arrest her alleged shooter.

“My daughter, my grandchildren’s mother, was shot and killed with her nine-year-old son standing next to her,” Pamela Dias, mother of 35-year-old Ajike “AJ” Owens said at a press conference Monday.

“She had no weapon. She posed no imminent threat to anyone.”

In a press release from renowned Civil Rights Attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family, Crump lays out the details of this fatal tragedy. Owens’ children were playing in a field next to an apartment complex when their neighbor, 58, “began yelling at them to get off her land” and allegedly called them “racial slurs.”

The children went back home but supposedly left an iPad behind, which the neighbor allegedly took.

Later, one of the children went to the neighbor’s residence to retrieve the iPad. The woman allegedly threw the device at one of Owens’ children, striking him and cracking the screen.

Once Owens’ children told her what happened, she went to confront her neighbor, knocking on her neighbor’s door. That’s when Owens’ neighbor allegedly shot her through the door without opening it.

The incident, which occurred on June 2, had been the result of a two-and-a-half year long “neighborhood feud,” Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods said Monday.

Later at the press conference, Woods counted approximately six to eight police reports he brought with him, detailing the ongoing back-and-forth between the neighbors, which started in Jan. 2021.

According to preliminary information from police, officers responded to a call relating to the incident at 9:00 p.m.

Upon arrival, officers found that Owens had been shot. Emergency services rendered life-saving aid but the mother of four was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital that night.

Owens’ family and civil rights leaders criticized Woods’ office for not moving fast enough to arrest the neighbor who allegedly shot her. The neighbor has not been identified by authorities.

“We stand here on Tuesday afternoon and no one has been arrested,” said Bishop J. David Stockton III, president of Marion County NAACP.

“Everyone knows who did this.”

The sheriff defended his office by citing Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, which he said prevents police from immediately making an arrest until it’s determined whether the shooting was justifiable.

“What a lot of people don’t understand is that law has specific instructions for us in law enforcement,” Woods said.

“It sometimes becomes an obstacle.”