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The real-life crime genre has a new medium, or perhaps even a completely fresh vocabulary and grammar: police body cam footage. Countenances of those harmed, witnesses and potential offenders appear suddenly to the cameras, at times in the harsh glare of headlights or torches as the officers approach, their faces and voices expressing caution or panic or indignation or suspiciously contrived innocence. And we frequently incidentally glimpse the faces of the officers themselves, one standing by blankly while the other asks the questions with what occasionally seems like extraordinary diffidence – though maybe this is because they are aware they are being recorded.

A Growing Trend in Non-Fiction Cinema

We have previously seen the streaming service real-life crime film American Murder: Gabby Petito, about the killing of an Instagram influencer by her boyfriend, whose main point of interest was body cam footage and in which, as in this film, the police seemed surprisingly lenient with the perpetrator. There is also Bill Morrison’s Oscar-nominated short Incident, composed entirely of body cam film. Now comes Geeta Gandbhir’s documentary about the tragic incident of Ajike Owens in Ocala, Florida, a African American woman whose four young kids reportedly bothered and tormented her white neighbour, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an escalating series of neighborhood conflicts in which the police were repeatedly called, the accused shot Owens dead through her closed front door, when the victim went to the neighbor's residence to address her about hurling items at her children.

The Investigation and State Laws

The arresting officers found evidence that Lorincz had done online research into the state's self-defense statutes, which allow householders and others to shoot if there is a significant presumption of danger. The movie constructs its narrative with the officer recordings generated during the repeated police visits to the location before the killing, and then at the disturbing and disordered incident site itself – introduced by 911 audio material of Lorincz calling the police in a melodramatically shaky voice. There is also police cell footage of Lorincz which has a disturbing, unsettling appeal.

Depiction of the Suspect

The documentary does not really imply anything too complicated about Lorincz, or any mitigating factors. She is obviously disturbed, although the children are heard calling her a derogatory term, an ugly jibe. The production is presented as an illustration of how “stand your ground” laws generate unnecessary and heartbreaking bloodshed. But the reality of gun ownership and the constitutional right (that historic American constitutional privilege that a deceased pundit famously claimed made firearm fatalities a price worth paying) is not much highlighted.

Police Interrogation and Gun Culture

It is possible to watch the officer questioning segments here and feel surprised at how little interest the police 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? 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 undoubtedly important questions (though they may have done in footage that didn’t make the edit). Or is possessing a firearm so commonplace it would be like asking about kitchen appliances or toasters?

Arrest and Aftermath

For what appeared to her local residents a extended period, the suspect was not even taken into custody and indicted, only held and even provided accommodation away from home for the night (another parallel, by the way, 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 the individual simply refuses to stand, refuses to put her wrists out for the cuffs, not hostilely, 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?

Conclusion and Verdict

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