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The true crime category has a new medium, or perhaps even a completely fresh vocabulary and structure: officer-worn camera recordings. Faces of victims, witnesses and potential offenders loom up to the cameras, sometimes in the intense brightness of headlights or flashlights as the police arrive, their expressions and tones eloquent of wariness or panic or anger or suspiciously contrived innocence. And we frequently catch sight of the faces of the law enforcement personnel, one waiting impassively while the other asks the questions with what occasionally seems like extraordinary diffidence – though perhaps this is because they are aware they are being recorded.

A Growing Trend in Documentary Filmmaking

We have previously seen the streaming service real-life crime film American Murder: Gabby Petito, about the slaying of an Instagram influencer by her partner, whose main point of interest was body cam footage and in which, as in this film, the police seemed surprisingly lenient with the perpetrator. There is also the acclaimed short film Incident by Bill Morrison, composed entirely of officer footage. Now comes a new film by Geeta Gandbhir about the tragic incident of Ajike Owens in Ocala, Florida, a woman of colour whose four young kids allegedly harassed and antagonized her white neighbour, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an escalating series of neighborhood conflicts in which the police were summoned multiple times, Lorincz shot Owens dead through her locked door, when Owens went to Lorincz’s house to address her about hurling items at her children.

The Police Inquiry and State Laws

The investigating authorities 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 reasonable belief of danger. The documentary builds its story with the officer recordings captured during the repeated police visits to the location before the killing, and then at the horrific and chaotic incident site itself – introduced by 911 audio material of the caller calling the police in a melodramatically shaky voice. There is also jail video of Lorincz which has a disturbing, unsettling appeal.

Portrayal of the Accused

The film does not really suggest anything too complex about the neighbor, or any extenuating circumstance. She is clearly unstable, although the children are heard calling her a derogatory term, an hurtful taunt. The film is presented as an example of how self-defense regulations generate senseless and tragic violence. But the fact of gun ownership and the constitutional right (that historic American constitutional privilege that a deceased pundit famously claimed made firearm fatalities a price worth paying) is not much highlighted.

Police Interrogation and Gun Culture

It is possible to watch the officer questioning segments here and feel surprised at how little interest 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? 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 didn’t make the edit). Or is possessing a firearm so commonplace it would be like asking about microwaves or toasters?

Arrest and Aftermath

For what appeared to her local residents a extended period, the suspect was not even arrested and charged, only held and even provided accommodation away from home for the night (another parallel, incidentally, with the Gabby Petito case). And when she was finally officially taken into custody in the detention area, there is an remarkable scene in which Lorincz simply declines to rise, will not extend her arms for the cuffs, not hostilely, but with the courteously pathetic demeanor of someone whose mental health means that she is unable to comply. Had the kid-gloves treatment up until that point encouraged her to think that this could be effective?

Final Outcome and Judgment

It was not successful; and the jury’s verdict is saved for the end titles. A very sombre portrayal of American crime and punishment.