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The true crime category has an innovative format, or perhaps even a whole new language and structure: officer-worn camera recordings. Faces of victims, witnesses and possible perpetrators loom up to the cameras, sometimes in the intense brightness of headlights or flashlights as the police arrive, their expressions and tones expressing wariness or panic or indignation 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 sometimes seems like remarkable hesitation – though maybe this is because they know they are being recorded.

A Growing Trend in Non-Fiction Cinema

We have already had the Netflix true-crime documentary American Murder: Gabby Petito, about the killing of an Instagram influencer by her partner, whose primary focus was body cam footage and in which, as in this film, the law enforcement seemed extraordinarily lax with the suspect. There is also the acclaimed short film Incident by Bill Morrison, composed entirely of body cam film. Now comes a new film by Geeta Gandbhir about the grim case of Ajike Owens in Ocala, Florida, a African American woman whose children reportedly bothered and antagonized her neighbor, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an increasing number of neighborhood conflicts in which the police were repeatedly called, the accused fatally shot Owens through her locked door, when Owens went to Lorincz’s house to confront 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 Florida’s “stand your ground” laws, which allow residents and others to shoot if there is a significant presumption of threat. The movie constructs its narrative with the body cam footage captured during the repeated police visits to the scene before the killing, and then at the disturbing and disordered incident site itself – introduced by emergency call recordings of the caller calling the police in a melodramatically shaky voice. There is also jail video of Lorincz which has a disturbing, unsettling appeal.

Depiction of the Suspect

The film does not really suggest anything too complicated about Lorincz, or any extenuating circumstance. She is clearly unstable, although the children are heard calling her a derogatory term, an ugly jibe. The film is showcased as an illustration of how “stand your ground” laws generate senseless and tragic bloodshed. But the reality of gun ownership and the constitutional right (that longstanding U.S. legal right that a late commentator notoriously said made firearm fatalities a price worth paying) is not much emphasized.

Police Interrogation and Firearm Norms

It is feasible to watch the officer questioning segments here and feel astonished at how little interest the officers took in this aspect. When did she buy her gun? Where (if anywhere) did she train in its use? Was this the first time she discharged the weapon? How was the gun kept in her home? Could it have been easily accessible and prepared? The police aren’t shown asking any of these surely relevant questions (though they could have inquired in recordings that were not included). Or is gun ownership so normal 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 arrested and charged, only detained and even offered a hotel stay away from home for the night (another parallel, by the way, with the a prior incident). And when she was finally formally arrested in the detention area, there is an remarkable scene in which the individual simply refuses to stand, will not extend her arms for the cuffs, not aggressively, 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 led her to think that this could be effective?

Final Outcome and Judgment

It didn’t; and the panel's decision is revealed in the closing credits. A very sombre picture of U.S. justice and consequences.