🔗 Share this article

The true crime genre has a new medium, or perhaps even a whole new language and structure: police body cam footage. Faces of victims, witnesses and possible perpetrators loom up to the cameras, sometimes in the harsh glare of vehicle beams or flashlights as the police arrive, their expressions and tones expressing wariness or fear or anger or suspiciously contrived innocence. And we often catch sight of the expressions of the officers themselves, one waiting impassively while the other conducts the inquiry with what sometimes seems like remarkable hesitation – though maybe this is because they know they are being recorded.

An Emerging Pattern in Non-Fiction Cinema

We have already had the streaming service true-crime documentary The Gabby Petito Case, about the slaying of an social media personality by her boyfriend, whose main point of interest was body cam footage 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 Geeta Gandbhir’s documentary about the grim case of a Florida mother in a city in Florida, a woman of colour whose children reportedly bothered and tormented her white neighbour, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an escalating series of neighborhood conflicts in which the authorities were repeatedly called, the accused fatally shot Owens through her closed front door, when Owens went to Lorincz’s house to confront her about hurling items at her children.

The Investigation and Legal Context

The arresting officers found proof that the suspect had done online research into the state's self-defense statutes, which permit residents and others to use firearms if there is a reasonable belief of danger. The movie builds its story with the body cam footage captured during the multiple officer calls to the scene before the killing, and then at the horrific and chaotic crime scene itself – prefaced by 911 audio material 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.

Depiction of the Suspect

The film does not really imply anything too complex about the neighbor, or any extenuating circumstance. She is clearly unstable, although the kids are heard calling her “the Karen”, an hurtful taunt. The film is showcased as an example of how self-defense regulations generate senseless and tragic violence. But the fact of gun ownership and the second amendment (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 possible to watch the officer questioning segments here and feel astonished at how little interest the officers took in this aspect. 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 authorities aren’t shown asking any of these undoubtedly important questions (though they could have inquired in footage that didn’t make the edit). Or is gun ownership so normal it would be like asking about kitchen appliances or bread heaters?

Detention and Consequences

For what appeared to her neighbors a very long time, Lorincz was not even taken into custody and indicted, 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 ultimately officially taken into custody in the detention area, there is an extraordinary sequence in which Lorincz simply declines to rise, refuses to put her wrists out for the cuffs, not hostilely, but with the courteously pathetic demeanor of someone whose psychological state means that she is unable to comply. Had the kid-gloves treatment up until that point encouraged her to think that this could be effective?

Conclusion and Verdict

It was not successful; and the panel's decision is revealed in the closing credits. A deeply sobering portrayal of U.S. justice and consequences.