The real-life crime genre has a new medium, or perhaps even a whole new language and grammar: officer-worn camera recordings. Faces of victims, observers and possible perpetrators appear suddenly to the cameras, sometimes in the harsh glare of vehicle beams or flashlights as the police arrive, their expressions and tones eloquent of caution or panic or anger or suspiciously contrived innocence. And we often catch sight of the faces of the law enforcement personnel, 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.
We have already had the streaming service real-life crime film American Murder: Gabby Petito, about the killing of an Instagram influencer by her boyfriend, whose primary focus was officer recordings and in which, as in this film, the police seemed extraordinarily lax with the perpetrator. There is also the acclaimed short film Incident by Bill Morrison, made exclusively of body cam film. Now comes a new film by Geeta Gandbhir about the tragic incident of Ajike Owens in a city in Florida, a woman of colour 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 summoned multiple times, Lorincz fatally shot Owens through her closed front door, when the victim went to Lorincz’s house to confront her about hurling items at her children.
The arresting officers found proof that the suspect had done online research into the state's self-defense statutes, which allow householders and others to use firearms if there is a significant presumption of threat. The documentary constructs its narrative with the officer recordings captured during the multiple officer calls to the location before the shooting, and then at the disturbing and disordered incident site itself – prefaced 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.
The documentary does not really imply anything too complex about Lorincz, 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 unnecessary and heartbreaking bloodshed. But the reality of firearm possession and the second amendment (that historic American constitutional privilege that a deceased pundit famously claimed made gun deaths a necessary cost) is not much highlighted.
It is possible to watch the police interrogation scenes here and feel astonished at how little interest the police took in this aspect. When did she buy her gun? Where (if anywhere) did she train in its use? 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 bread heaters?
For what seemed to her neighbors a extended period, Lorincz was not even arrested and charged, only held and even offered a hotel stay away from home for the night (another parallel, by the way, with the a prior incident). And when she was ultimately officially taken into custody in the holding cell, there is an remarkable scene in which Lorincz simply declines to rise, refuses to put her wrists out for the handcuffs, not hostilely, but with the courteously pathetic demeanor 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?
It was not successful; and the panel's decision is saved for the closing credits. A very sombre picture of American crime and punishment.
Music enthusiast and cultural critic with a passion for uncovering emerging trends and sharing in-depth analyses.
