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The true crime genre has a new medium, or perhaps even a completely fresh vocabulary and structure: officer-worn camera recordings. Faces of victims, observers and possible perpetrators loom up to the cameras, at times in the harsh glare of headlights or torches as the officers approach, their expressions and tones expressing wariness or panic or indignation or dubiously feigned naivety. And we often incidentally glimpse the faces of the law enforcement personnel, one standing by blankly while the other asks the questions with what occasionally seems like remarkable hesitation – though perhaps this is because they are aware they are being recorded.

A Growing Trend in Documentary Filmmaking

We have already had the Netflix real-life crime film The Gabby Petito Case, about the slaying of an Instagram influencer by her partner, whose primary focus was body cam footage and in which, as in this film, the police 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 tragic incident of Ajike Owens in Ocala, Florida, a African American woman whose children allegedly harassed and antagonized her neighbor, a local resident. In 2023, after an escalating series of neighbour-dispute incidents in which the authorities were repeatedly called, the accused fatally shot Owens through her locked door, when the victim went to the neighbor's residence to address her about hurling items at her children.

The Police Inquiry and State Laws

The arresting officers found evidence that Lorincz had done online research into the state's self-defense statutes, which allow residents and others to use firearms if there is a reasonable belief of threat. The movie constructs its narrative with the body cam footage generated during the multiple officer calls to the location before the shooting, and then at the disturbing and disordered 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 the individual which has a disturbing, unsettling appeal.

Portrayal of the Accused

The film does not really suggest anything too complex about Lorincz, or any extenuating circumstance. She is clearly unstable, although the kids are heard calling her a derogatory term, an hurtful taunt. The production is presented as an example of how self-defense regulations lead to senseless and tragic bloodshed. But the reality of gun ownership and the constitutional right (that longstanding U.S. legal right that a late commentator famously claimed made gun deaths a price worth paying) is not much highlighted.

Officer Questioning and Gun Culture

It is possible to watch the officer questioning segments here and feel astonished at how little interest 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? 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 may have done in recordings that were not included). Or is possessing a firearm so normal it would be like asking about kitchen appliances or toasters?

Detention and Consequences

For what seemed to her neighbors a extended period, the suspect was not even taken into custody and indicted, only held and even offered a hotel stay away from home for the night (another parallel, by the way, with the Gabby Petito case). And when she was ultimately formally arrested in the holding cell, there is an remarkable scene in which Lorincz simply refuses to stand, refuses to put her wrists out for the cuffs, 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 led her to think that this could be effective?

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.