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The real-life crime genre has a new medium, or perhaps even a whole new language and structure: officer-worn camera recordings. Faces of victims, witnesses and potential offenders appear suddenly to the cameras, sometimes in the intense brightness of headlights or torches as the police arrive, their faces and voices expressing caution or panic or indignation or dubiously feigned naivety. And we often catch sight of the faces of the law enforcement personnel, one standing by blankly while the other conducts the inquiry with what occasionally seems like remarkable hesitation – though maybe this is because they know they are being recorded.

A Growing Trend in Documentary Filmmaking

We have previously seen the streaming service true-crime documentary The Gabby Petito Case, about the slaying of an Instagram influencer by her partner, whose primary focus was officer recordings and in which, as in this film, the police seemed surprisingly lenient with the perpetrator. There is also Bill Morrison’s Oscar-nominated short Incident, composed entirely of body cam film. Now comes a new film by Geeta Gandbhir about the grim case of Ajike Owens in a city in Florida, a woman of colour whose four young kids reportedly bothered and antagonized her white neighbour, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an escalating series of neighborhood conflicts in which the authorities were summoned multiple times, the accused fatally shot Owens through her closed front door, when the victim 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 internet searches into the state's self-defense statutes, which permit residents and others to shoot if there is a significant presumption of threat. The movie builds its story with the officer recordings generated during the multiple officer calls to the location before the shooting, and then at the disturbing and disordered crime scene itself – introduced by 911 audio material of Lorincz contacting authorities in a melodramatically shaky voice. There is also police cell footage of Lorincz which has a disturbing, unsettling appeal.

Portrayal of the Accused

The film does not really imply anything too complicated about Lorincz, or any mitigating factors. She is clearly unstable, although the children are heard calling her a derogatory term, an hurtful taunt. The film is showcased as an example of how self-defense regulations lead to senseless and tragic violence. But the reality of gun ownership and the constitutional right (that historic American constitutional privilege that a late commentator notoriously said made firearm fatalities a necessary cost) is not much highlighted.

Police Interrogation and Firearm Norms

It is possible to watch the police interrogation scenes here and feel surprised at how little interest the officers took in this aspect. At what time did she purchase the firearm? Where (if anywhere) did she train in its use? Was this the first time she discharged the weapon? Where did she store it in the house? Was it just on the couch, loaded and ready? The police aren’t shown asking any of these surely relevant questions (though they could have inquired 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 appeared to her local residents a extended period, Lorincz was not even arrested and charged, only held and even provided accommodation away from home for the night (another point of comparison, 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 declines to rise, refuses to put her wrists out for the handcuffs, not hostilely, but with the courteously pathetic demeanor of someone whose mental health means that she just can’t do it. Had the kid-gloves treatment up until that point encouraged her to think that this might actually work?

Final Outcome and Judgment

It didn’t; and the panel's decision is saved for the end titles. A deeply sobering picture of U.S. justice and consequences.