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The real-life crime category has a new medium, or perhaps even a completely fresh vocabulary and grammar: officer-worn camera recordings. Faces of victims, observers and possible perpetrators appear suddenly to the cameras, sometimes in the harsh glare of headlights or flashlights as the police arrive, their faces and voices expressing wariness or fear or anger or dubiously feigned naivety. And we often catch sight of the faces of the law enforcement personnel, one waiting impassively while the other conducts the inquiry with what occasionally seems like remarkable hesitation – though maybe this is because they are aware 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 slaying of an social media personality by her partner, whose main point of interest was officer recordings and in which, as in this film, the law enforcement seemed extraordinarily lax with the perpetrator. There is also Bill Morrison’s Oscar-nominated short Incident, made exclusively of body cam film. Now comes Geeta Gandbhir’s documentary about the grim case of a Florida mother in a city in Florida, a African American woman whose four young kids reportedly bothered and antagonized her white neighbour, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an increasing number of neighbour-dispute incidents in which the authorities were summoned multiple times, Lorincz shot Owens dead through her closed front door, when Owens went to Lorincz’s house to address her about throwing objects at her children.

The Investigation and Legal Context

The investigating authorities found evidence that the suspect 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 documentary constructs its narrative with the body cam footage generated during the repeated police visits to the scene before the shooting, and then at the horrific and chaotic incident site itself – introduced by 911 audio material of the caller 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 suggest anything too complicated about the neighbor, or any extenuating circumstance. She is clearly unstable, although the children are heard calling her a derogatory term, an ugly jibe. The film is presented as an example of how “stand your ground” laws generate unnecessary and heartbreaking violence. But the reality of gun ownership and the second amendment (that historic American constitutional privilege that a deceased pundit notoriously said made gun deaths a price worth paying) is not much highlighted.

Officer Questioning and Firearm Norms

It is feasible to watch the officer questioning segments here and feel surprised at how minimal concern the police took in this point. When did she buy her gun? Where (if anywhere) did she train in its use? Was this the first time she discharged the weapon? Where did she store it in the house? Was it just on the couch, loaded and ready? The police aren’t shown asking any of these surely relevant questions (though they may have done in footage that were not included). Or is gun ownership so normal it would be like asking about kitchen appliances or bread heaters?

Arrest and Aftermath

For what seemed to her neighbors a extended period, the suspect was not even taken into custody and indicted, only held and even offered a hotel stay away from home for the night (another parallel, incidentally, with the Gabby Petito case). And when she was finally officially taken into custody in the detention area, there is an extraordinary sequence in which the individual simply declines to rise, refuses to put her wrists out for the handcuffs, not aggressively, but with the politely self-pitying air of someone whose psychological state means that she is unable to comply. Did the gentle handling up until that point led her to think that this might actually work?

Conclusion and Verdict

It didn’t; and the jury’s verdict is revealed in the end titles. A very sombre portrayal of American crime and punishment.