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The real-life crime category has a new medium, or perhaps even a completely fresh vocabulary and grammar: police body cam footage. Countenances of those harmed, observers and possible perpetrators loom up to the cameras, at times in the harsh glare of headlights or torches as the officers approach, their expressions and tones expressing caution or panic or anger or suspiciously contrived innocence. And we often catch sight of the expressions of the law enforcement personnel, one waiting impassively while the other asks the questions with what occasionally seems like remarkable hesitation – though perhaps this is because they are aware they are being recorded.

An Emerging Pattern in Documentary Filmmaking

We have already had the Netflix real-life crime film The Gabby Petito Case, about the killing of an Instagram influencer by her boyfriend, 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 a new film by Geeta Gandbhir about the tragic incident of a Florida mother in Ocala, Florida, a African American woman whose four young kids reportedly bothered and tormented her neighbor, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an escalating series of neighbour-dispute incidents in which the police were repeatedly called, Lorincz shot Owens dead through her closed front door, when the victim went to the neighbor's residence to address her about throwing objects at her children.

The Investigation and Legal Context

The investigating authorities found proof that Lorincz had done online research into the state's self-defense statutes, which allow residents and others to shoot if there is a reasonable belief of danger. The documentary builds its story with the officer recordings 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 Lorincz calling the police in a melodramatically shaky 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 complicated about Lorincz, or any mitigating factors. She is clearly unstable, although the children are heard calling her “the Karen”, an hurtful taunt. The production is presented as an illustration of how self-defense regulations generate unnecessary and heartbreaking violence. 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 emphasized.

Officer Questioning and Firearm Norms

It is possible to watch the officer questioning segments here and feel astonished 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? Could it have been easily accessible and prepared? The authorities aren’t shown asking any of these surely relevant questions (though they may have done in footage that didn’t make the edit). Or is possessing a firearm so commonplace it would be like asking about kitchen appliances or toasters?

Arrest and Aftermath

For what appeared to her neighbors a very long time, Lorincz was not even taken into custody and indicted, only held and even provided accommodation away from home for the night (another parallel, incidentally, with the a prior incident). And when she was finally formally arrested in the holding cell, there is an extraordinary sequence in which Lorincz simply refuses to stand, will not extend her arms for the handcuffs, not hostilely, but with the courteously pathetic demeanor of someone whose mental health means that she just can’t do it. Did the gentle handling up until that point encouraged her to think that this could be effective?

Conclusion and Verdict

It didn’t; and the panel's decision is revealed in the end titles. A deeply sobering picture of American crime and punishment.