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The true crime category has a new medium, or perhaps even a whole new language and structure: officer-worn camera recordings. Faces of victims, observers and possible perpetrators loom up to the cameras, at times in the intense brightness of vehicle beams or torches as the officers approach, their expressions and tones expressing wariness or fear or anger or dubiously feigned naivety. And we often incidentally glimpse the expressions of the officers themselves, one standing by blankly while the other asks the questions with what sometimes seems like extraordinary diffidence – though maybe this is because they know they are being recorded.

An Emerging Pattern in Documentary Filmmaking

We have previously seen the Netflix true-crime documentary The Gabby Petito Case, about the slaying of an Instagram influencer by her partner, whose primary focus was officer recordings and in which, as in this film, the law enforcement seemed surprisingly lenient with the suspect. 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 reportedly bothered and antagonized her neighbor, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an escalating series of neighborhood conflicts in which the authorities were summoned multiple times, the accused fatally shot Owens through her locked door, when Owens went to Lorincz’s house to address her about hurling items at her children.

The Investigation and Legal Context

The arresting officers found proof that Lorincz had done online research into the state's self-defense statutes, which allow householders and others to use firearms if there is a reasonable belief of danger. The movie builds its story with the officer recordings captured during the multiple officer calls to the location before the shooting, and then at the disturbing and disordered crime scene itself – prefaced by emergency call recordings of the caller contacting authorities in a melodramatically shaky voice. There is also jail video of the individual which has a chilly, queasy fascination.

Depiction of the Suspect

The documentary does not really imply anything too complex about Lorincz, or any extenuating circumstance. She is clearly unstable, although the kids are heard calling her “the Karen”, an ugly jibe. The production is showcased as an illustration of how “stand your ground” laws generate unnecessary and heartbreaking violence. But the fact of firearm possession and the second amendment (that historic American constitutional privilege that a late commentator notoriously said made gun deaths a necessary cost) is not much emphasized.

Officer Questioning and Firearm Norms

It is possible to watch the police interrogation scenes here and feel astonished at how minimal concern the police took in this aspect. 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 surely relevant questions (though they may have done in recordings that didn’t make the edit). Or is possessing a firearm so commonplace it would be like asking about microwaves or toasters?

Detention and Consequences

For what seemed to her local residents a extended period, the suspect was not even taken into custody and indicted, only detained and even offered a hotel stay away from home for the night (another point of comparison, by the way, with the a prior incident). And when she was ultimately formally arrested in the holding cell, there is an remarkable scene in which the individual simply declines to rise, will not extend her arms 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. Had the kid-gloves treatment up until that point led her to think that this could be effective?

Final Outcome and Judgment

It was not successful; and the jury’s verdict is saved for the closing credits. A very sombre portrayal of American crime and punishment.