Key Takeaways:
- An 81-year-old Florida woman was arrested for allegedly spraying bear mace on a Black mother and her two daughters.
- The victim’s family is raising funds to relocate, fearing further violence from their neighbor.
- The case draws chilling parallels to the 2023 killing of Ajike “A.J.” Owens in the same city.
An 81-year-old woman in Ocala, Florida, is facing battery charges after allegedly spraying bear mace on two Black children and their mother. The suspect, Ada Anderson, was arrested on May 30. Her neighbor, April Morant, is now speaking out about the trauma and fear her family continues to face.
Morant moved into her Marion County home in November with her children, ages 6 and 3. She told WESH-2 News and shared on Facebook that her neighbor had been hostile “since day one.” Anderson is accused of yelling racial slurs and spraying the girls with bear mace while they played with bubbles in their front yard. Now, Morant fears the violence is only escalating.
“What went through my head [was] I thought she had a gun. So I literally kind of jumped, it startled me 'cause when she was [coming] to the fence... I didn't know what was in her hand... then she sprayed it,” the mother said, according to WESH-2 News. She also expressed disappointment in the charges, noting they were “just battery but [nothing about] the kids or maybe a hate crime, like, because you were saying all this stuff while you were spraying.”
Soon after the incident, the girls’ mother posted a video of her neighbor sitting on her covered patio and looking at Morant. In a separate clip, Anderson was recorded telling her neighbor, “You’re not welcome in this neighborhood, you f**king n**gers.”
The post's caption read, “I have called the police on her before, but they didn’t do anything. Yesterday I told them she [is] playing with my babies, and that’s a very, very dangerous game to play. They took her to jail and charged her with three counts of battery. I really just wanna move from next to her. I know as soon as she [gets] out, she will be on that back porch again, and I’m not sure how far she might go since she feels like my beautiful Black skin doesn’t belong in her neighborhood.”
The alleged attack on the girls, however, was too violent to be taken lightly. Morant has launched a GoFundMe in hopes of collecting $15,000 to relocate her family to a safer environment. “Imagine the pain. Imagine the fear. Imagine your babies screaming while someone who hates the color of their skin attacks them for existing… We can’t stay here. I don’t want to wait for this situation to escalate even further,” reads the fundraiser page.
Ocala, Florida, was the scene of the 2023 killing of Ajike “A.J.” Owens in an eerily similar situation
Ajike “A.J.” Owens, a Black mother, was killed in June 2023 when she attempted to confront her neighbor, Susan Lorincz. The then-60-year-old white woman had made complaints about the children playing too loudly near her property. Owens' son claimed the lady berated him and his friends, that she struck him by throwing a roller skate, and that she swung an umbrella at the group of kids.
Lorincz fired a single gunshot through her locked front door. Like Anderson, she was accused of having a history of using racial slurs and harassing children. In November 2024, she was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being found guilty of manslaughter. In his ruling, Marion County Circuit Court Judge Robert Hodges said, “I find that the shooting was completely unnecessary.”
For Morant, this isn’t just about charges — it’s about safety, justice, and the right to exist peacefully in their own neighborhood.