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The true crime genre has an innovative format, or perhaps even a whole new language and grammar: officer-worn camera recordings. Faces of victims, observers and potential offenders appear suddenly 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 panic or anger or dubiously feigned naivety. And we frequently incidentally glimpse the faces of the law enforcement personnel, one waiting impassively while the other conducts the inquiry with what sometimes seems like remarkable hesitation – though maybe this is because they are aware they are being recorded.

A Growing Trend in Documentary Filmmaking

We have already had the Netflix real-life crime film The Gabby Petito Case, about the slaying of an social media personality by her boyfriend, whose main point of interest was body cam footage and in which, as in this film, the law enforcement seemed extraordinarily lax 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 grim case of Ajike Owens in a city in Florida, a woman of colour whose children reportedly bothered and antagonized her neighbor, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an increasing number of neighbour-dispute incidents in which the police were summoned multiple times, Lorincz shot Owens dead through her closed front door, when the victim went to the neighbor's residence to confront her about throwing objects at her children.

The Police Inquiry and Legal Context

The arresting officers found proof that the suspect had done internet searches into Florida’s “stand your ground” laws, which permit householders and others to shoot if there is a significant presumption of danger. The documentary constructs its narrative with the officer recordings generated during the repeated police visits to the location before the shooting, and then at the horrific and chaotic crime scene itself – prefaced by emergency call recordings of the caller contacting authorities in a melodramatically shaky voice. There is also police cell footage of the individual which has a disturbing, unsettling appeal.

Depiction of the Suspect

The documentary does not really imply anything too complicated about the neighbor, or any mitigating factors. She is obviously disturbed, although the children are heard calling her “the Karen”, an hurtful taunt. The film is presented as an illustration of how “stand your ground” laws lead to senseless and tragic bloodshed. But the reality of firearm possession and the second amendment (that historic American constitutional privilege that a late commentator 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 astonished at how minimal concern the police took in this aspect. At what time did she purchase the firearm? Did she receive any instruction on handling it? Had she ever had occasion to fire it before? Where did she store it in the house? Was it just on the couch, loaded and ready? The authorities aren’t shown asking any of these undoubtedly important questions (though they may have done in footage that were not included). Or is possessing a firearm so normal it would be like asking about kitchen appliances or toasters?

Detention and Consequences

For what seemed to her neighbors a very long time, Lorincz was not even taken into custody and indicted, only held and even provided accommodation away from home for the night (another parallel, incidentally, with the a prior incident). And when she was ultimately officially taken into custody in the detention area, there is an remarkable scene in which Lorincz simply declines to rise, refuses to put her wrists out for the handcuffs, not aggressively, but with the politely self-pitying air of someone whose mental health means that she just can’t do it. Had the kid-gloves treatment up until that point led her to think that this might actually work?

Final Outcome and Judgment

It was not successful; and the jury’s verdict is revealed in the closing credits. A deeply sobering portrayal of American crime and punishment.