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The real-life crime genre has an innovative format, or perhaps even a completely fresh vocabulary and grammar: officer-worn camera recordings. Faces of victims, observers and possible perpetrators loom up to the cameras, at times in the intense brightness of headlights or torches as the police arrive, their expressions and tones eloquent of wariness or fear or indignation or dubiously feigned naivety. And we often incidentally glimpse the faces of the law enforcement personnel, one waiting impassively while the other asks the questions with what occasionally seems like remarkable hesitation – though perhaps this is because they are aware they are being recorded.

An Emerging Pattern in Documentary Filmmaking

We have previously seen the Netflix real-life crime film American Murder: Gabby Petito, about the killing of an Instagram influencer by her partner, whose main point of interest 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, made exclusively of officer footage. Now comes a new film by Geeta Gandbhir about the tragic incident of Ajike Owens in Ocala, Florida, a woman of colour 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, the accused shot Owens dead through her closed front door, when the victim went to the neighbor's residence to address her about throwing objects at her children.

The Police Inquiry and Legal Context

The investigating authorities found proof that the suspect had done online research into Florida’s “stand your ground” laws, which permit householders and others to use firearms if there is a reasonable belief of threat. The documentary constructs its narrative with the officer recordings generated during the repeated police visits to the scene before the shooting, and then at the horrific and chaotic crime scene itself – prefaced 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 documentary does not really suggest anything too complex about Lorincz, or any mitigating factors. She is clearly unstable, although the children are heard calling her “the Karen”, an hurtful taunt. The production is presented as an illustration of how “stand your ground” laws generate unnecessary and heartbreaking violence. But the reality of firearm possession and the second amendment (that longstanding U.S. legal right 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 police interrogation scenes here and feel astonished at how little interest the officers took in this point. When did she buy her gun? Where (if anywhere) did she train in its use? Had she ever had occasion to fire it before? How was the gun kept in her home? Was it just on the couch, loaded and ready? The authorities aren’t shown asking any of these surely relevant questions (though they could have inquired in recordings that were not included). Or is possessing a firearm so commonplace it would be like asking about microwaves or bread heaters?

Detention and Consequences

For what seemed to her local residents 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 point of comparison, by the way, with the a prior incident). And when she was finally formally arrested in the detention area, there is an extraordinary sequence in which Lorincz simply refuses to stand, will not extend her arms for the cuffs, not aggressively, but with the politely self-pitying air of someone whose mental health means that she is unable to comply. Did the gentle handling up until that point led 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 closing credits. A very sombre portrayal of U.S. justice and consequences.