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The real-life crime category has an innovative format, or perhaps even a whole new language and structure: police body cam footage. Faces of victims, observers and possible perpetrators loom up to the cameras, sometimes in the harsh glare of headlights or torches as the police arrive, their faces and voices eloquent of caution or fear or indignation or dubiously feigned naivety. And we often incidentally glimpse the expressions of the law enforcement personnel, one waiting impassively while the other conducts the inquiry with what sometimes seems like extraordinary diffidence – though perhaps 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 slaying of an social media personality by her partner, whose primary focus was officer recordings and in which, as in this film, the law enforcement seemed extraordinarily lax with the suspect. There is also the acclaimed short film Incident by Bill Morrison, made exclusively of body cam film. 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 antagonized her neighbor, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an escalating series of neighborhood conflicts in which the police were repeatedly called, Lorincz fatally shot Owens through her closed front 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 investigating authorities found proof that the suspect had done online research into Florida’s “stand your ground” laws, which allow householders and others to use firearms if there is a significant presumption of threat. The movie builds its story with the officer recordings captured during the multiple officer calls to the location before the killing, and then at the horrific and chaotic crime scene itself – prefaced by emergency call recordings of the caller contacting authorities 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 imply anything too complex about the neighbor, or any extenuating circumstance. She is clearly unstable, although the children are heard calling her “the Karen”, an ugly jibe. The production is presented as an illustration of how “stand your ground” laws generate senseless and tragic bloodshed. But the fact of firearm possession and the constitutional right (that longstanding U.S. legal right that a late commentator famously claimed made gun deaths a necessary cost) is not much highlighted.

Officer Questioning and Gun Culture

It is possible to watch the police interrogation scenes here and feel surprised at how minimal concern the officers took in this aspect. 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? Could it have been easily accessible and prepared? 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 gun ownership so commonplace it would be like asking about kitchen appliances or toasters?

Detention and Consequences

For what seemed to her local residents a very long time, 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 Gabby Petito case). 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 handcuffs, not aggressively, but with the courteously pathetic demeanor 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?

Final Outcome and Judgment

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