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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. Countenances of those harmed, observers and possible perpetrators appear suddenly to the cameras, at times in the intense brightness of vehicle beams or torches as the police arrive, their faces and voices eloquent of caution or panic or anger or dubiously feigned naivety. And we frequently incidentally glimpse the faces 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 know they are being recorded.

An Emerging Pattern in Non-Fiction Cinema

We have previously seen the Netflix true-crime documentary The Gabby Petito Case, about the slaying of an social media personality by her partner, whose primary focus was officer recordings 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, 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 children reportedly bothered and tormented her white neighbour, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an increasing number of neighborhood conflicts in which the authorities were repeatedly called, the accused shot Owens dead through her closed front door, when the victim went to Lorincz’s house to address her about hurling items at her children.

The Police Inquiry and State Laws

The arresting officers found proof that Lorincz had done online research into Florida’s “stand your ground” laws, which allow residents and others to shoot if there is a significant presumption of danger. The documentary constructs its narrative with the officer recordings generated during the multiple officer calls to the scene before the killing, and then at the horrific and chaotic crime scene itself – introduced by emergency call recordings of Lorincz calling the police 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 imply anything too complicated about Lorincz, 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 illustration of how “stand your ground” laws lead to senseless and tragic bloodshed. But the reality of gun ownership and the second amendment (that historic American constitutional privilege that a deceased pundit famously claimed made firearm fatalities a necessary cost) is not much emphasized.

Police Interrogation and Firearm Norms

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? Where (if anywhere) did she train in its use? 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 recordings that were not included). Or is possessing a firearm so commonplace it would be like asking about microwaves 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 point of comparison, incidentally, with the a prior incident). And when she was finally officially taken into custody in the holding cell, there is an remarkable scene in which Lorincz simply refuses to stand, refuses to put her wrists out for the handcuffs, not hostilely, but with the courteously pathetic demeanor of someone whose psychological state 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 was not successful; and the jury’s verdict is revealed in the closing credits. A deeply sobering portrayal of U.S. justice and consequences.