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The true crime category has a new medium, or perhaps even a completely fresh vocabulary and grammar: officer-worn camera recordings. Faces of victims, witnesses and possible perpetrators loom up to the cameras, at times in the intense brightness of headlights or torches as the officers approach, their expressions and tones eloquent of wariness or fear or indignation or suspiciously contrived innocence. And we frequently incidentally glimpse the expressions 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 know they are being recorded.

An Emerging Pattern in Documentary Filmmaking

We have already had the streaming service real-life crime film The Gabby Petito Case, about the killing of an social media personality by her partner, whose main point of interest 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, made exclusively of officer footage. Now comes Geeta Gandbhir’s documentary about the grim case of Ajike Owens in Ocala, Florida, a woman of colour whose children reportedly bothered and tormented 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 locked door, when the victim went to the neighbor's residence to confront her about hurling items at her children.

The Police Inquiry and State Laws

The arresting officers found proof that the suspect had done internet searches into the state's self-defense statutes, which allow householders and others to use firearms if there is a significant presumption of danger. The documentary builds its story with the officer recordings captured during the multiple officer calls to the location before the killing, and then at the disturbing and disordered incident site itself – introduced by emergency call recordings of the caller contacting authorities in a dramatically trembling voice. There is also police cell footage of Lorincz which has a chilly, queasy fascination.

Depiction of the Suspect

The film does not really suggest anything too complex about the neighbor, or any extenuating circumstance. She is clearly unstable, although the kids are heard calling her a derogatory term, an hurtful taunt. The production is showcased as an example of how self-defense regulations generate unnecessary and heartbreaking violence. But the reality of firearm possession and the second amendment (that historic American constitutional privilege that a deceased pundit notoriously said made firearm fatalities a necessary cost) is not much emphasized.

Officer Questioning and Firearm Norms

It is possible 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? 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? 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 footage that were not included). Or is possessing a firearm so normal it would be like asking about kitchen appliances or toasters?

Arrest and Aftermath

For what seemed to her local residents a extended period, the suspect was not even arrested and charged, only detained 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 finally formally arrested in the detention area, there is an remarkable scene in which Lorincz simply declines to rise, refuses to put her wrists out for the cuffs, not aggressively, but with the politely self-pitying air of someone whose psychological state means that she just can’t do it. Did the gentle handling up until that point encouraged her to think that this might actually work?

Final Outcome and Judgment

It was not successful; and the panel's decision is saved for the end titles. A deeply sobering portrayal of American crime and punishment.