The real-life crime genre has a new medium, or perhaps even a completely fresh vocabulary and structure: officer-worn camera recordings. Countenances of those harmed, witnesses and potential offenders appear suddenly to the cameras, sometimes in the harsh glare of headlights or flashlights as the officers approach, their faces and voices eloquent of wariness or panic or indignation or dubiously feigned naivety. And we often catch sight of the faces of the officers themselves, one standing by blankly while the other conducts the inquiry with what occasionally seems like remarkable hesitation – though perhaps this is because they know they are being recorded.
We have previously seen the streaming service real-life crime film American Murder: Gabby Petito, 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 extraordinarily lax with the suspect. There is also Bill Morrison’s Oscar-nominated short Incident, made exclusively of officer footage. Now comes Geeta Gandbhir’s documentary about the grim case of Ajike Owens in Ocala, Florida, a woman of colour whose children allegedly harassed and tormented her white neighbour, a local resident. 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 locked door, when Owens went to Lorincz’s house to confront her about throwing objects at her children.
The arresting officers found proof that Lorincz had done online research into the state's self-defense statutes, which allow householders and others to shoot if there is a significant presumption of threat. The movie constructs its narrative with the body cam footage captured during the multiple officer calls to the location before the shooting, and then at the disturbing and disordered incident site 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 chilly, queasy fascination.
The documentary does not really suggest anything too complicated about Lorincz, or any mitigating factors. She is clearly unstable, although the children are heard calling her “the Karen”, an hurtful taunt. The production is presented as an illustration of how self-defense regulations generate senseless and tragic violence. But the reality of gun ownership and the second amendment (that longstanding U.S. legal right that a deceased pundit notoriously said made gun deaths a price worth paying) is not much highlighted.
It is feasible to watch the officer questioning segments here and feel astonished at how minimal concern the officers took in this aspect. At what time did she purchase the firearm? Did she receive any instruction on handling it? 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 police aren’t shown asking any of these surely relevant questions (though they may have done in recordings that didn’t make the edit). Or is gun ownership so normal it would be like asking about kitchen appliances or toasters?
For what appeared to her local residents a very long time, the suspect was not even taken into custody and indicted, only detained and even offered a hotel stay away from home for the night (another point of comparison, incidentally, with the Gabby Petito case). And when she was ultimately formally arrested in the holding cell, there is an extraordinary sequence in which Lorincz simply refuses to stand, will not extend her arms for the cuffs, not hostilely, but with the courteously pathetic demeanor 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 might actually work?
It didn’t; and the jury’s verdict is revealed in the end titles. A deeply sobering picture of American crime and punishment.
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