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The real-life crime category has a new medium, or perhaps even a completely fresh vocabulary and structure: officer-worn camera recordings. Faces of victims, witnesses and possible perpetrators appear suddenly to the cameras, at times in the intense brightness of headlights or torches as the police arrive, their expressions and tones expressing wariness or fear or indignation or dubiously feigned naivety. And we frequently incidentally glimpse the expressions of the officers themselves, one waiting impassively while the other conducts the inquiry with what occasionally seems like remarkable hesitation – though maybe this is because they are aware they are being recorded.

An Emerging Pattern in Documentary Filmmaking

We have previously seen the Netflix real-life crime film American Murder: Gabby Petito, about the killing of an social media personality by her partner, whose main point of interest was body cam footage 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, composed entirely of officer footage. Now comes a new film by Geeta Gandbhir about the tragic incident of Ajike Owens in a city in Florida, a African American woman whose four young kids reportedly bothered and tormented her neighbor, a local resident. In 2023, after an increasing number of neighborhood conflicts in which the police were repeatedly called, Lorincz fatally shot Owens through her locked door, when the victim went to the neighbor's residence to address her about hurling items at her children.

The Police Inquiry and State Laws

The investigating authorities found evidence that Lorincz had done online research into the state's self-defense statutes, which allow residents and others to use firearms if there is a reasonable belief of threat. The documentary builds its story with the body cam footage generated during the multiple officer calls to the scene before the shooting, and then at the disturbing and disordered crime scene itself – prefaced by 911 audio material of Lorincz calling the police in a dramatically trembling voice. There is also jail video of the individual which has a chilly, queasy fascination.

Portrayal of the Accused

The film does not really imply anything too complex 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 presented as an example of how self-defense regulations lead to unnecessary and heartbreaking bloodshed. But the fact of gun ownership and the constitutional right (that historic American constitutional privilege that a deceased pundit notoriously said made gun deaths a price worth paying) is not much highlighted.

Officer Questioning and Firearm Norms

It is possible to watch the police interrogation scenes here and feel astonished at how little interest the officers 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? Where did she store it in the house? Was it just on the couch, loaded and ready? 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 commonplace it would be like asking about kitchen appliances or toasters?

Arrest and Aftermath

For what appeared to her local residents a extended period, Lorincz was not even taken into custody and indicted, only detained and even provided accommodation away from home for the night (another point of comparison, incidentally, with the a prior incident). And when she was finally officially taken into custody in the detention area, there is an remarkable scene in which Lorincz simply declines to rise, refuses to put her wrists out for the cuffs, not aggressively, but with the courteously pathetic demeanor of someone whose psychological state means that she just can’t do it. Had the kid-gloves treatment up until that point led her to think that this might actually work?

Conclusion and Verdict

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