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The true crime category has a new medium, or perhaps even a whole new language and grammar: officer-worn camera recordings. Faces of victims, observers and potential offenders appear suddenly to the cameras, at times in the intense brightness of vehicle beams or flashlights as the police arrive, their faces and voices expressing caution or fear or anger or dubiously feigned naivety. And we often incidentally glimpse the expressions of the officers themselves, one standing by blankly while the other asks the questions with what occasionally seems like remarkable hesitation – though perhaps this is because they know they are being recorded.

An Emerging Pattern in Non-Fiction Cinema

We have previously seen the streaming service real-life crime film The Gabby Petito Case, about the killing of an Instagram influencer by her partner, whose primary focus was officer recordings and in which, as in this film, the police seemed surprisingly lenient 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 a Florida mother in Ocala, Florida, a woman of colour whose four young kids allegedly harassed and antagonized her neighbor, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an increasing number of neighbour-dispute incidents in which the police were summoned multiple times, the accused shot Owens dead through her closed front door, when Owens went to the neighbor's residence to confront her about hurling items at her children.

The Police Inquiry and State Laws

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 threat. The movie builds its story with the body cam footage generated during the repeated police visits to the location before the shooting, and then at the horrific and chaotic incident site 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 documentary does not really imply anything too complex about the neighbor, or any extenuating circumstance. She is obviously disturbed, although the kids are heard calling her “the Karen”, an ugly jibe. The film is presented as an example of how self-defense regulations generate senseless and tragic bloodshed. But the fact of firearm possession and the second amendment (that longstanding U.S. legal right that a late commentator notoriously said made firearm fatalities a necessary cost) is not much highlighted.

Officer Questioning and Firearm Norms

It is feasible to watch the officer questioning segments 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? Was this the first time she discharged the weapon? 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 could have inquired in recordings that were not included). Or is possessing a firearm so normal it would be like asking about microwaves or toasters?

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 point of comparison, incidentally, with the a prior incident). And when she was finally officially taken into custody in the holding cell, 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 politely self-pitying air of someone whose mental health means that she is unable to comply. Did the gentle handling up until that point led her to think that this might actually work?

Final Outcome and Judgment

It didn’t; and the panel's decision is saved for the end titles. A very sombre picture of American crime and punishment.