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The true crime genre has a new medium, or perhaps even a completely fresh vocabulary and grammar: officer-worn camera recordings. Countenances of those harmed, observers and potential offenders appear suddenly to the cameras, sometimes in the intense brightness of vehicle beams or flashlights as the officers approach, their faces and voices eloquent of wariness or panic 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 remarkable hesitation – though perhaps this is because they know they are being recorded.

An Emerging Pattern in Non-Fiction Cinema

We have previously seen the Netflix real-life crime film American Murder: Gabby Petito, about the killing of an Instagram influencer by her boyfriend, whose main point of interest was body cam footage and in which, as in this film, the law enforcement seemed extraordinarily lax with the suspect. There is also Bill Morrison’s Oscar-nominated short Incident, composed entirely of officer footage. Now comes Geeta Gandbhir’s documentary about the grim case of a Florida mother in a city in Florida, a African American woman whose four young kids allegedly harassed and tormented her neighbor, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an escalating series of neighborhood conflicts in which the authorities were repeatedly called, Lorincz fatally shot Owens through her locked door, when Owens went to the neighbor's residence to address her about throwing objects at her children.

The Police Inquiry and State Laws

The investigating authorities found proof that Lorincz had done internet searches into the state's self-defense statutes, which permit householders and others to shoot if there is a reasonable belief of danger. The movie builds its story with the body cam footage generated during the repeated police visits to the location before the shooting, and then at the disturbing and disordered incident site itself – introduced by emergency call recordings of Lorincz contacting authorities in a melodramatically shaky voice. There is also police cell footage of Lorincz which has a disturbing, unsettling appeal.

Depiction of the Suspect

The documentary does not really imply anything too complicated about the neighbor, or any mitigating factors. She is obviously disturbed, although the children are heard calling her “the Karen”, an hurtful taunt. The production is showcased as an illustration of how self-defense regulations generate unnecessary and heartbreaking bloodshed. But the fact of firearm possession and the constitutional right (that longstanding U.S. legal right that a late commentator notoriously said made firearm fatalities 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 little interest the officers took in this point. At what time did she purchase the firearm? 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 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 toasters?

Detention and Consequences

For what seemed to her neighbors a extended period, the suspect was not even taken into custody and indicted, only detained and even offered a hotel stay away from home for the night (another parallel, by the way, with the Gabby Petito case). And when she was ultimately officially taken into custody in the holding cell, there is an remarkable scene 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 psychological state means that she just can’t do it. Did the gentle handling up until that point led her to think that this might actually work?

Conclusion and Verdict

It was not successful; and the jury’s verdict is revealed in the end titles. A very sombre picture of American crime and punishment.