🔗 Share this article

The real-life crime category has a new medium, or perhaps even a whole new language and structure: officer-worn camera recordings. Countenances of those harmed, observers and possible perpetrators loom up to the cameras, sometimes in the intense brightness of vehicle beams or flashlights as the officers approach, their expressions and tones expressing caution or fear or anger or dubiously feigned naivety. And we frequently incidentally glimpse the expressions of the law enforcement personnel, one waiting impassively while the other asks the questions with what sometimes seems like remarkable hesitation – though perhaps this is because they know they are being recorded.

A Growing Trend in Documentary Filmmaking

We have previously seen the Netflix 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, made exclusively of body cam film. Now comes Geeta Gandbhir’s documentary about the grim case of Ajike Owens in a city in Florida, a African American woman whose children allegedly harassed and tormented her neighbor, a local resident. In 2023, after an increasing number of neighbour-dispute incidents in which the authorities were summoned multiple times, the accused fatally shot Owens through her closed front door, when the victim went to Lorincz’s house to address her about hurling items at her children.

The Investigation and State Laws

The arresting officers found evidence that Lorincz had done online research into Florida’s “stand your ground” laws, which permit householders and others to shoot if there is a reasonable belief of threat. The movie builds its story with the officer recordings captured during the multiple officer calls to the scene before the killing, and then at the disturbing and disordered crime scene itself – prefaced by emergency call recordings of Lorincz calling the police in a melodramatically shaky voice. There is also police cell footage of Lorincz which has a disturbing, unsettling appeal.

Portrayal of the Accused

The documentary does not really imply anything too complicated about Lorincz, or any extenuating circumstance. She is obviously disturbed, although the kids are heard calling her “the Karen”, an ugly jibe. The production is showcased as an example of how “stand your ground” laws lead to senseless and tragic bloodshed. But the fact of gun ownership and the constitutional right (that historic American constitutional privilege that a deceased pundit notoriously said made gun deaths a price worth paying) is not much emphasized.

Officer Questioning and Firearm Norms

It is feasible to watch the officer questioning segments here and feel surprised at how minimal concern the officers took in this point. At what time did she purchase the firearm? Where (if anywhere) did she train in its use? Was this the first time she discharged the weapon? Where did she store it in the house? 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 microwaves or toasters?

Arrest and Aftermath

For what appeared to her local residents 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, by the way, with the Gabby Petito case). And when she was finally formally arrested in the holding cell, there is an remarkable scene in which Lorincz simply declines to rise, refuses to put her wrists out for the handcuffs, not hostilely, but with the courteously pathetic demeanor of someone whose mental health means that she just can’t do it. 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 saved for the closing credits. A very sombre portrayal of U.S. justice and consequences.