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The true crime category has an innovative format, or perhaps even a completely fresh vocabulary and grammar: police body cam footage. Faces of victims, witnesses and potential offenders loom up to the cameras, sometimes in the harsh glare of headlights or torches as the officers approach, their faces and voices eloquent of wariness or panic or indignation or suspiciously contrived innocence. And we often incidentally glimpse the expressions of the law enforcement personnel, one standing by blankly while the other asks the questions with what sometimes seems like extraordinary diffidence – though perhaps this is because they know they are being recorded.

A Growing Trend in Documentary Filmmaking

We have previously seen the Netflix true-crime documentary American Murder: Gabby Petito, about the slaying of an social media personality by her boyfriend, whose primary focus was body cam footage and in which, as in this film, the law enforcement seemed surprisingly lenient with the suspect. There is also Bill Morrison’s Oscar-nominated short Incident, made exclusively of body cam film. Now comes a new film by Geeta Gandbhir about the grim case of a Florida mother in a city in Florida, a African American woman whose children allegedly harassed and tormented her neighbor, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an increasing number of neighbour-dispute incidents in which the police were repeatedly called, Lorincz shot Owens dead through her locked door, when the victim went to the neighbor's residence to confront her about hurling items at her children.

The Police Inquiry and Legal Context

The arresting officers found proof that Lorincz had done internet searches into Florida’s “stand your ground” laws, which permit householders and others to use firearms if there is a significant presumption of threat. The documentary builds its story with the body cam footage generated during the multiple officer calls to the scene before the killing, and then at the horrific and chaotic crime scene itself – introduced by 911 audio material of Lorincz contacting authorities in a melodramatically shaky 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 Lorincz, or any extenuating circumstance. She is obviously disturbed, although the children are heard calling her “the Karen”, an ugly jibe. The film is showcased as an illustration of how “stand your ground” laws lead to unnecessary and heartbreaking bloodshed. But the fact of firearm possession and the second amendment (that historic American constitutional privilege that a late commentator famously claimed made firearm fatalities a price worth paying) is not much highlighted.

Police Interrogation and Firearm Norms

It is feasible to watch the police interrogation scenes here and feel astonished at how minimal concern 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? Where did she store it in the house? Could it have been easily accessible and prepared? The police aren’t shown asking any of these surely relevant questions (though they could have inquired in recordings that didn’t make the edit). Or is gun ownership so commonplace it would be like asking about kitchen appliances or toasters?

Detention and Consequences

For what appeared to her local residents a very long time, Lorincz was not even taken into custody and indicted, only held and even provided accommodation away from home for the night (another parallel, by the way, with the a prior incident). And when she was ultimately officially taken into custody in the detention area, there is an extraordinary sequence in which the individual simply declines to rise, 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 is unable to comply. Had the kid-gloves treatment up until that point encouraged her to think that this might actually work?

Final Outcome and Judgment

It didn’t; and the panel's decision is revealed in the end titles. A deeply sobering portrayal of American crime and punishment.