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The real-life crime genre has a new medium, or perhaps even a completely fresh vocabulary and structure: officer-worn camera recordings. Countenances of those harmed, 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 fear or anger or dubiously feigned naivety. And we often incidentally glimpse the faces of the officers themselves, one standing by blankly while the other asks the questions with what occasionally seems like remarkable hesitation – though perhaps this is because they are aware 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 police seemed surprisingly lenient with the perpetrator. There is also the acclaimed short film Incident by Bill Morrison, composed entirely of body cam film. Now comes Geeta Gandbhir’s documentary about the grim case of Ajike Owens in a city in Florida, a African American woman whose four young kids allegedly harassed and antagonized her white neighbour, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an increasing number of neighbour-dispute incidents in which the authorities were repeatedly called, the accused fatally shot Owens through her closed front door, when Owens went to the neighbor's residence to address her about throwing objects at her children.

The Investigation and State Laws

The investigating authorities found proof that Lorincz had done internet searches into the state's self-defense statutes, which permit residents and others to use firearms if there is a reasonable belief of danger. The movie builds its story with the body cam footage captured during the multiple officer calls to the location before the shooting, and then at the horrific and chaotic crime scene itself – prefaced by emergency call recordings of Lorincz contacting authorities in a dramatically trembling 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 suggest anything too complicated about the neighbor, or any extenuating circumstance. She is clearly unstable, although the kids are heard calling her “the Karen”, an hurtful taunt. The film is showcased as an illustration of how “stand your ground” laws lead to unnecessary and heartbreaking violence. But the fact of gun ownership and the constitutional right (that longstanding U.S. legal right that a late commentator famously claimed 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 point. 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? How was the gun kept in her home? 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 gun ownership so normal 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 taken into custody and indicted, 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 remarkable scene in which the individual simply declines to rise, refuses to put her wrists out for the cuffs, 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 could be effective?

Conclusion and Verdict

It didn’t; and the panel's decision is revealed in the closing credits. A deeply sobering portrayal of American crime and punishment.