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The true crime category has an innovative format, or perhaps even a completely fresh vocabulary and structure: officer-worn camera recordings. Faces of victims, witnesses and potential offenders appear suddenly to the cameras, sometimes in the harsh glare of vehicle beams or torches as the officers approach, their faces and voices expressing caution or panic or indignation or dubiously feigned naivety. And we frequently incidentally glimpse the faces of the officers themselves, one standing by blankly while the other asks the questions with what occasionally seems like remarkable hesitation – though maybe 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 The Gabby Petito Case, about the slaying of an Instagram influencer by her boyfriend, whose primary focus was body cam footage and in which, as in this film, the police 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 reportedly bothered and antagonized her white neighbour, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an increasing number of neighborhood conflicts in which the authorities were repeatedly called, the accused 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 Investigation and State Laws

The arresting officers found proof that Lorincz had done internet searches 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 builds its story with the body cam footage generated during the repeated police visits to the location before the shooting, and then at the horrific and chaotic incident site itself – prefaced by emergency call recordings of the caller contacting authorities in a dramatically trembling voice. There is also police cell footage of Lorincz which has a disturbing, unsettling appeal.

Depiction of the Suspect

The film does not really suggest anything too complex about the neighbor, or any mitigating factors. She is obviously disturbed, although the children are heard calling her “the Karen”, an ugly jibe. The film is showcased as an illustration of how self-defense regulations generate senseless and tragic bloodshed. But the reality of gun ownership and the constitutional right (that longstanding U.S. legal right that a deceased pundit notoriously said made gun deaths a price worth paying) is not much highlighted.

Police Interrogation 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 aspect. 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 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 normal it would be like asking about kitchen appliances or bread heaters?

Arrest and Aftermath

For what appeared to her local residents 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, by the way, with the Gabby Petito case). And when she was finally formally arrested in the holding cell, there is an extraordinary sequence 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?

Conclusion and Verdict

It was not successful; and the panel's decision is saved for the end titles. A deeply sobering picture of American crime and punishment.