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The true crime category has a new medium, or perhaps even a whole new language and grammar: police body cam footage. Countenances of those harmed, observers and potential offenders appear suddenly to the cameras, sometimes in the intense brightness of vehicle beams or torches as the police arrive, their faces and voices eloquent of caution or panic or anger or dubiously feigned naivety. And we often incidentally glimpse the expressions of the law enforcement personnel, one waiting impassively while the other asks the questions with what sometimes seems like remarkable hesitation – though maybe this is because they know they are being recorded.

A Growing Trend in Documentary Filmmaking

We have previously seen the Netflix true-crime documentary The Gabby Petito Case, about the killing of an social media personality by her boyfriend, whose primary focus was officer recordings and in which, as in this film, the police seemed surprisingly lenient with the perpetrator. There is also the acclaimed short film Incident by Bill Morrison, composed entirely of body cam film. Now comes a new film by Geeta Gandbhir about the grim case of a Florida mother in Ocala, Florida, a African American woman whose children reportedly bothered and tormented her white neighbour, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an increasing number of neighborhood conflicts in which the police were repeatedly called, Lorincz shot Owens dead through her locked door, when Owens went to Lorincz’s house to address her about hurling items at her children.

The Investigation and Legal Context

The investigating authorities found evidence that the suspect had done online research into Florida’s “stand your ground” laws, which allow residents and others to use firearms if there is a reasonable belief of danger. The movie builds its story with the officer recordings generated during the multiple officer calls to the scene before the shooting, and then at the horrific and chaotic incident site itself – prefaced by emergency call recordings of the caller calling the police in a melodramatically shaky voice. There is also police cell footage of Lorincz which has a disturbing, unsettling appeal.

Portrayal of the Accused

The documentary does not really imply anything too complicated about the neighbor, or any mitigating factors. She is obviously disturbed, although the kids are heard calling her “the Karen”, an ugly jibe. The film is presented as an illustration of how “stand your ground” laws lead to unnecessary and heartbreaking bloodshed. But the fact of firearm possession and the constitutional right (that historic American constitutional privilege that a late commentator notoriously said made gun deaths a necessary cost) is not much emphasized.

Police Interrogation and Gun Culture

It is feasible to watch the officer questioning segments here and feel surprised at how little interest the officers took in this point. At what time did she purchase the firearm? 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 police 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 possessing a firearm so commonplace it would be like asking about kitchen appliances or bread heaters?

Detention and Consequences

For what appeared to her local residents a extended period, Lorincz was not even arrested and charged, only held and even offered a hotel stay away from home for the night (another parallel, incidentally, with the Gabby Petito case). And when she was finally officially taken into custody 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 aggressively, but with the courteously pathetic demeanor of someone whose mental health means that she just can’t do it. Had the kid-gloves treatment up until that point led her to think that this could be effective?

Final Outcome and Judgment

It didn’t; and the jury’s verdict is revealed in the closing credits. A deeply sobering picture of U.S. justice and consequences.