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The real-life crime genre has a new medium, or perhaps even a completely fresh vocabulary and grammar: officer-worn camera recordings. Faces of victims, witnesses and possible perpetrators loom up to the cameras, sometimes in the intense brightness of vehicle beams or torches as the officers approach, their faces and voices eloquent of caution or panic or anger or suspiciously contrived innocence. And we often incidentally glimpse the expressions of the law enforcement personnel, one standing by blankly while the other conducts the inquiry with what sometimes seems like extraordinary diffidence – though perhaps this is because they know they are being recorded.

A Growing Trend in Non-Fiction Cinema

We have previously seen the Netflix true-crime documentary The Gabby Petito Case, about the killing of an Instagram influencer by her partner, whose main point of interest was body cam footage and in which, as in this film, the police seemed extraordinarily lax with the suspect. 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 Ajike Owens in a city in Florida, a African American woman whose four young kids allegedly harassed and antagonized her neighbor, a local resident. In 2023, after an increasing number of neighbour-dispute incidents 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 hurling items at her children.

The Police Inquiry and State Laws

The investigating authorities found proof that the suspect had done online research into the state's self-defense statutes, which permit householders and others to shoot if there is a significant presumption of danger. The movie constructs its narrative with the officer recordings generated during the repeated police visits to the location before the shooting, and then at the disturbing and disordered incident site itself – introduced by 911 audio material of the caller contacting authorities in a dramatically trembling voice. There is also jail video of the individual which has a chilly, queasy fascination.

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 kids are heard calling her a derogatory term, an ugly jibe. The production is presented as an example of how self-defense regulations generate unnecessary and heartbreaking violence. But the fact of gun ownership and the second amendment (that historic American constitutional privilege that a deceased pundit famously claimed made firearm fatalities a price worth paying) is not much emphasized.

Police Interrogation and Gun Culture

It is possible to watch the police interrogation scenes here and feel astonished at how minimal concern the police 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? 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 kitchen appliances or toasters?

Detention and Consequences

For what seemed to her local residents a very long time, the suspect 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 Gabby Petito case). And when she was ultimately formally arrested in the detention area, there is an remarkable scene in which Lorincz simply refuses to stand, refuses to put her wrists out for the cuffs, not aggressively, 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 led her to think that this might actually work?

Conclusion and Verdict

It was not successful; and the jury’s verdict is saved for the end titles. A deeply sobering picture of American crime and punishment.