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The real-life crime category has an innovative format, or perhaps even a completely fresh vocabulary and structure: police body cam footage. Faces of victims, witnesses and possible perpetrators appear suddenly to the cameras, sometimes in the harsh glare of vehicle beams or flashlights as the police arrive, their faces and voices eloquent of wariness or fear or anger or dubiously feigned naivety. And we often incidentally glimpse the expressions of the officers themselves, one standing by blankly while the other conducts the inquiry with what occasionally seems like extraordinary diffidence – though maybe this is because they are aware they are being recorded.

An Emerging Pattern in Documentary Filmmaking

We have already had the Netflix real-life crime film The Gabby Petito Case, about the killing of an Instagram influencer by her partner, whose primary focus was body cam footage and in which, as in this film, the police seemed extraordinarily lax with the suspect. There is also Bill Morrison’s Oscar-nominated short Incident, made exclusively 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 four young kids allegedly harassed and tormented her neighbor, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an escalating series of neighbour-dispute incidents in which the police were repeatedly called, Lorincz fatally shot Owens through her locked door, when Owens went to Lorincz’s house to confront her about throwing objects at her children.

The Police Inquiry and State Laws

The arresting officers found evidence that Lorincz had done online research into the state's self-defense statutes, which permit residents and others to shoot if there is a significant presumption of threat. The documentary builds its story with the body cam footage captured during the multiple officer calls to the scene before the killing, and then at the horrific and chaotic incident site itself – prefaced by 911 audio material of the caller calling the police in a melodramatically shaky voice. There is also jail video of the individual which has a disturbing, unsettling appeal.

Portrayal of the Accused

The documentary does not really suggest anything too complex about Lorincz, or any extenuating circumstance. She is obviously disturbed, although the kids are heard calling her “the Karen”, an ugly jibe. The production is presented as an illustration of how “stand your ground” laws generate unnecessary and heartbreaking bloodshed. But the fact of firearm possession 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 Gun Culture

It is possible to watch the police interrogation scenes here and feel astonished at how little interest the officers took in this aspect. At what time did she purchase the firearm? Did she receive any instruction on handling it? Was this the first time she discharged the weapon? 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 undoubtedly important questions (though they may have done in footage that didn’t make the edit). Or is possessing a firearm so normal it would be like asking about microwaves or toasters?

Detention and Consequences

For what appeared to her neighbors a very long time, Lorincz was not even arrested and charged, only held and even offered a hotel stay away from home for the night (another point of comparison, incidentally, with the Gabby Petito case). And when she was ultimately officially taken into custody in the holding cell, there is an extraordinary sequence in which the individual simply declines to rise, will not extend her arms for the cuffs, not aggressively, but with the courteously pathetic demeanor of someone whose psychological state means that she is unable to comply. Did the gentle handling up until that point encouraged her to think that this could be effective?

Final Outcome and Judgment

It didn’t; and the jury’s verdict is revealed in the closing credits. A deeply sobering picture of U.S. justice and consequences.