Angelus News | September 6, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 18

INTERSECTIONS
GREG ERLANDSON
The monsters in our own nightmare
Imagine yourself in your house. A
neighbor is banging on the front
door and yelling. Or there are
noises outside, a car window being
smashed. What do you reach for?
Susan Lorincz reached for a gun.
Embroiled in a dispute with her
neighbor, Lorincz, standing behind a
locked and bolted metal door, fired a
bullet through the door, killing Ajika
Owens, a single mother of four.
Jason Lewis reached for a gun and
went out at 3 a.m. to investigate when
SHUTTERSTOCK
he heard noises on his street. Three
teens were breaking into cars. When
he yelled at the kids, he thought one
of them was running toward him.
He fired, killing 13-year-old Karon
Desean Blake.
Lorincz is white. Lewis is black. Both
victims were black. Lorincz lives in
Florida, Lewis in Washington, D.C.
Both were convicted in August of
manslaughter and face years in prison.
The two stories are exhibits A and
B in the madness that has overtaken
a country in which there are more
guns than people, a country which is
unique among advanced countries for
the number of deaths caused by guns,
a country where lethal violence is considered
option No.1 for self-protection
of life and property.
Lorincz was 59 years old and lived
alone. She most likely bought her
.380 handgun because it is marketed
as being good for self-defense with
little recoil when fired. She didn’t
like Owens’ children playing near her
house and often yelled at them. On
that fateful day, she had thrown roller
skates and an umbrella at the children,
who told their mother. Owens
was angry, and went over and banged
on Lorincz’s door while yelling at
her. Lorincz said she was scared, and
blindly fired a shot through the metal
door, striking Owens and killing her.
Lewis, 41, was a parks and rec employee
in Washington, D.C. His work
involved helping at-risk youth. He has
four kids. He lives in a neighborhood
sociologists might call transitioning.
D.C. has tough gun control, but
Lewis was licensed to have a gun.
When he heard the noises outside in
the middle of the night, he got up to
see what was going on. Lewis brought
a gun with him. He saw what turned
out to be a stolen Kia with two kids in
it and a third kid, Karon Blake, breaking
into a car. He yelled. Police think
Blake was running after the Kia, but
Lewis said he thought he was running
toward him, and he fired multiple
shots. A porch camera caught Blake’s
final words: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m
sorry. I’m just a kid.” When police
arrived, Lewis was trying to resuscitate
the youth.
If guns weren’t involved, if fear wasn’t
a factor, if the nightmare threat scripts
26 • ANGELUS • September 6, 2024