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The real-life crime category has an innovative format, or perhaps even a whole new language and structure: police body cam footage. Faces of victims, witnesses and potential offenders loom up to the cameras, sometimes in the intense brightness of vehicle beams or flashlights as the officers approach, their faces and voices eloquent of wariness or fear or indignation 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 extraordinary diffidence – though maybe this is because they know they are being recorded.

A Growing Trend in Documentary Filmmaking

We have previously seen the Netflix true-crime documentary American Murder: Gabby Petito, about the slaying of an Instagram influencer by her boyfriend, whose primary focus was officer recordings and in which, as in this film, the law enforcement seemed surprisingly lenient with the perpetrator. There is also Bill Morrison’s Oscar-nominated short Incident, composed entirely of officer footage. Now comes a new film by Geeta Gandbhir about the tragic incident of Ajike Owens in a city in Florida, a African American woman whose children allegedly harassed and tormented her white neighbour, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an increasing number of neighborhood conflicts in which the police were summoned multiple times, the accused fatally shot Owens through her closed front door, when Owens went to Lorincz’s house to confront her about hurling items at her children.

The Police Inquiry and State Laws

The investigating authorities found evidence that Lorincz had done online research into Florida’s “stand your ground” laws, which allow residents and others to shoot if there is a reasonable belief of threat. The documentary builds its story with the officer recordings captured during the multiple officer calls to the location before the shooting, and then at the horrific and chaotic incident site itself – introduced by emergency call recordings of the caller calling the police in a dramatically trembling voice. There is also police cell footage of the individual which has a chilly, queasy fascination.

Portrayal of the Accused

The documentary does not really suggest anything too complicated about Lorincz, or any mitigating factors. She is obviously disturbed, although the children are heard calling her “the Karen”, an ugly jibe. The production is presented as an example of how self-defense regulations generate senseless and tragic violence. But the fact of gun ownership and the second amendment (that historic American constitutional privilege that a deceased pundit notoriously said made firearm fatalities a price worth paying) is not much emphasized.

Officer Questioning and Firearm Norms

It is feasible to watch the officer questioning segments here and feel astonished at how minimal concern the police took in this aspect. When did she buy her gun? Did she receive any instruction on handling it? Was this the first time she discharged the weapon? Where did she store it in the house? Could it have been easily accessible and prepared? The authorities aren’t shown asking any of these surely relevant questions (though they may have done in footage that were not included). Or is possessing a firearm so commonplace it would be like asking about microwaves or bread heaters?

Detention and Consequences

For what seemed to her neighbors a very long time, the suspect was not even taken into custody and indicted, only detained and even offered a hotel stay away from home for the night (another point of comparison, incidentally, with the a prior incident). And when she was ultimately formally arrested in the holding cell, there is an remarkable scene in which the individual simply refuses to stand, refuses to put her wrists out for the cuffs, not aggressively, but with the politely self-pitying air of someone whose mental health means that she just can’t do it. Did the gentle handling up until that point encouraged her to think that this might actually work?

Conclusion and Verdict

It was not successful; and the jury’s verdict is revealed in the closing credits. A deeply sobering portrayal of U.S. justice and consequences.