🔗 Share this article

The true crime category has a new medium, or perhaps even a whole new language and structure: police body cam footage. Countenances of those harmed, witnesses and possible perpetrators loom up to the cameras, sometimes in the harsh glare of vehicle beams or torches as the officers approach, their faces and voices eloquent of wariness or fear or indignation or dubiously feigned naivety. And we often incidentally glimpse the expressions of the law enforcement personnel, one standing by blankly while the other conducts the inquiry with what occasionally seems like extraordinary diffidence – though maybe this is because they know they are being recorded.

A Growing Trend in Non-Fiction Cinema

We have already had the Netflix real-life crime film American Murder: Gabby Petito, about the killing of an Instagram influencer by her partner, whose primary focus was body cam footage and in which, as in this film, the law enforcement seemed surprisingly lenient with the perpetrator. There is also the acclaimed short film Incident by Bill Morrison, composed entirely of officer footage. 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 reportedly bothered and tormented her white neighbour, a local resident. In 2023, after an escalating series of neighborhood conflicts in which the police were repeatedly called, the accused fatally shot Owens through her closed front door, when the victim went to the neighbor's residence to confront her about throwing objects at her children.

The Police Inquiry and Legal Context

The arresting officers found evidence 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 reasonable belief of danger. The documentary constructs its narrative with the officer recordings captured during the repeated police visits to the scene before the killing, and then at the horrific and chaotic crime scene itself – prefaced by emergency call recordings of the caller calling the police in a dramatically trembling voice. There is also police cell footage of the individual which has a disturbing, unsettling appeal.

Depiction of the Suspect

The film does not really suggest anything too complicated about the neighbor, or any extenuating circumstance. She is clearly unstable, although the children are heard calling her a derogatory term, an hurtful taunt. The film is presented as an example of how “stand your ground” laws generate unnecessary and heartbreaking bloodshed. But the reality of firearm possession 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 Gun Culture

It is possible to watch the officer questioning segments here and feel astonished at how little interest the officers took in this aspect. 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 authorities aren’t shown asking any of these surely relevant questions (though they may have done in recordings that were not included). 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 neighbors a very long time, the suspect was not even arrested and charged, only detained 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 remarkable scene in which Lorincz simply refuses to stand, will not extend her arms for the cuffs, not aggressively, but with the politely self-pitying air 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?

Final Outcome and Judgment

It didn’t; and the jury’s verdict is revealed in the closing credits. A very sombre portrayal of U.S. justice and consequences.