🔗 Share this article

The real-life crime category has an innovative format, or perhaps even a whole new language and structure: officer-worn camera recordings. Faces of victims, witnesses and potential offenders appear suddenly to the cameras, sometimes in the harsh glare of headlights or torches as the officers approach, their expressions and tones expressing wariness or fear or indignation or dubiously feigned naivety. And we frequently catch sight of the expressions of the officers themselves, one waiting impassively while the other asks the questions with what sometimes seems like remarkable hesitation – though perhaps this is because they are aware they are being recorded.

An Emerging Pattern in Non-Fiction Cinema

We have previously seen the Netflix true-crime documentary The Gabby Petito Case, about the killing of an Instagram influencer by her boyfriend, whose primary focus was officer recordings and in which, as in this film, the law enforcement 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 Geeta Gandbhir’s documentary about the tragic incident of Ajike Owens in Ocala, Florida, a woman of colour whose children reportedly bothered and antagonized her white neighbour, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an escalating series of neighborhood conflicts in which the police were summoned multiple times, the accused fatally shot Owens through her closed front door, when Owens went to Lorincz’s house to address her about throwing objects at her children.

The Police Inquiry and State Laws

The arresting officers found evidence that Lorincz had done internet searches into the state's self-defense statutes, which permit householders and others to use firearms if there is a significant presumption of threat. The documentary builds its story with the officer recordings generated during the multiple officer calls to the location before the shooting, and then at the horrific and chaotic crime scene itself – introduced by emergency call recordings of Lorincz contacting authorities in a melodramatically shaky voice. There is also jail video of the individual which has a disturbing, unsettling appeal.

Portrayal of the Accused

The documentary does not really suggest anything too complex about the neighbor, or any extenuating circumstance. She is obviously disturbed, although the kids are heard calling her a derogatory term, an ugly jibe. The production is showcased as an illustration of how “stand your ground” laws generate senseless and tragic bloodshed. But the reality of gun ownership and the second amendment (that historic American constitutional privilege that a late commentator notoriously said made gun deaths a necessary cost) is not much highlighted.

Officer Questioning and Firearm Norms

It is possible to watch the police interrogation scenes here and feel astonished at how minimal concern 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? 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 footage that didn’t make the edit). Or is gun ownership so normal it would be like asking about kitchen appliances 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 provided accommodation away from home for the night (another parallel, incidentally, 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 aggressively, 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 encouraged her to think that this could be effective?

Conclusion and Verdict

It was not successful; and the jury’s verdict is saved for the closing credits. A deeply sobering portrayal of U.S. justice and consequences.