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The real-life crime genre has an innovative format, or perhaps even a completely fresh vocabulary and structure: police body cam footage. Countenances of those harmed, observers and potential offenders appear suddenly to the cameras, sometimes in the harsh glare of headlights or torches as the police arrive, their faces and voices expressing wariness or panic or anger or dubiously feigned naivety. And we often incidentally glimpse the expressions of the officers themselves, one waiting impassively while the other asks the questions with what occasionally seems like remarkable hesitation – though maybe this is because they are aware they are being recorded.

A Growing Trend in Documentary Filmmaking

We have previously seen the Netflix real-life crime film The Gabby Petito Case, about the killing of an Instagram influencer by her partner, whose main point of interest was officer recordings and in which, as in this film, the law enforcement seemed extraordinarily lax with the suspect. There is also Bill Morrison’s Oscar-nominated short Incident, composed entirely of officer footage. Now comes Geeta Gandbhir’s documentary about the tragic incident of Ajike Owens in a city in Florida, a African American woman whose four young kids allegedly harassed and tormented her white neighbour, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an increasing number of neighborhood conflicts in which the police were repeatedly called, the accused shot Owens dead through her locked door, when the victim went to the neighbor's residence to address her about hurling items at her children.

The Police Inquiry and Legal Context

The investigating authorities found evidence that Lorincz had done internet searches into Florida’s “stand your ground” laws, which allow residents and others to shoot if there is a reasonable belief of threat. The movie constructs its narrative with the body cam footage generated during the multiple officer calls to the location before the shooting, and then at the disturbing and disordered incident site itself – introduced by 911 audio material of Lorincz calling the police in a melodramatically shaky voice. There is also jail video of the individual which has a chilly, queasy fascination.

Portrayal of the Accused

The film does not really imply anything too complicated about the neighbor, or any mitigating factors. She is obviously disturbed, although the kids are heard calling her a derogatory term, an ugly jibe. The production is showcased as an illustration of how “stand your ground” laws generate senseless and tragic bloodshed. But the reality of gun ownership and the second amendment (that longstanding U.S. legal right that a deceased pundit famously claimed made gun deaths a price worth paying) is not much emphasized.

Police Interrogation and Firearm Norms

It is possible to watch the officer questioning segments here and feel surprised at how little interest the police took in this aspect. At what time did she purchase the firearm? Where (if anywhere) did she train in its use? Had she ever had occasion to fire it before? How was the gun kept in her home? Could it have been easily accessible and prepared? The police aren’t shown asking any of these surely relevant questions (though they may have done in recordings that were not included). Or is possessing a firearm so commonplace it would be like asking about kitchen appliances or bread heaters?

Detention and Consequences

For what appeared to her local residents a very long time, the suspect was not even arrested and charged, only detained and even offered a hotel stay away from home for the night (another parallel, incidentally, with the Gabby Petito case). And when she was finally formally arrested in the holding cell, there is an remarkable scene in which Lorincz simply refuses to stand, refuses to put her wrists out for the cuffs, not hostilely, but with the politely self-pitying air of someone whose psychological state means that she is unable to comply. Had the kid-gloves treatment up until that point led her to think that this might actually work?

Conclusion and Verdict

It didn’t; and the panel's decision is saved for the closing credits. A very sombre picture of American crime and punishment.