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The real-life crime category has a new medium, or perhaps even a whole new language and grammar: police body cam footage. Faces of victims, observers and potential offenders appear suddenly to the cameras, at times in the harsh glare of vehicle beams or torches as the officers approach, their expressions and tones expressing caution or fear or anger or dubiously feigned naivety. And we frequently incidentally glimpse the faces of the officers themselves, one waiting impassively while the other asks the questions with what sometimes seems like extraordinary diffidence – though perhaps this is because they are aware they are being recorded.

An Emerging Pattern in Non-Fiction Cinema

We have already had the Netflix true-crime documentary The Gabby Petito Case, about the killing 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 officer footage. Now comes Geeta Gandbhir’s documentary about the tragic incident of a Florida mother in a city in Florida, a woman of colour whose four young kids allegedly harassed and tormented 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 locked door, when Owens went to the neighbor's residence to confront her about throwing objects at her children.

The Investigation and State Laws

The investigating authorities found evidence that the suspect had done online research into the state's self-defense statutes, which allow residents and others to use firearms if there is a significant presumption of danger. The movie constructs its narrative with the officer recordings captured during the repeated police visits to the location before the killing, and then at the horrific and chaotic crime scene itself – prefaced 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.

Portrayal of the Accused

The documentary does not really imply anything too complex about Lorincz, or any mitigating factors. She is clearly unstable, although the kids are heard calling her a derogatory term, an ugly jibe. The film is showcased as an example of how self-defense regulations generate senseless and tragic violence. But the reality of gun ownership and the second amendment (that historic American constitutional privilege that a late commentator notoriously said made firearm fatalities a price worth paying) is not much emphasized.

Police Interrogation and Firearm Norms

It is possible to watch the officer questioning segments here and feel astonished at how little interest the police took in this point. When did she buy her gun? Did she receive any instruction on handling it? Had she ever had occasion to fire it before? How was the gun kept in her home? Could it have been easily accessible and prepared? The authorities aren’t shown asking any of these undoubtedly important questions (though they may have done in footage that didn’t make the edit). Or is gun ownership so normal it would be like asking about microwaves or toasters?

Arrest and Aftermath

For what seemed to her neighbors a very long time, Lorincz 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, incidentally, with the Gabby Petito case). And when she was ultimately formally arrested in the detention area, there is an extraordinary sequence in which Lorincz simply refuses to stand, 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 encouraged her to think that this might actually work?

Conclusion and Verdict

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