🔗 Share this article The Perfect Neighbor Analysis: Unpacking a Notorious Incident Via the Lens of a Florida Cop's Body Camera The real-life crime category has an innovative format, or perhaps even a whole new language and structure: police body cam footage. Faces of victims, witnesses and potential offenders loom up to the cameras, sometimes in the harsh glare of vehicle beams or torches as the police arrive, their expressions and tones eloquent of wariness or panic or anger or dubiously feigned naivety. And we frequently incidentally glimpse the faces of the officers themselves, one standing by blankly while the other conducts the inquiry with what sometimes seems like extraordinary diffidence – though perhaps this is because they are aware they are being recorded. A Growing Trend in Documentary Filmmaking We have already had the streaming service real-life crime film The Gabby Petito Case, about the killing of an Instagram influencer by her partner, whose main point of interest was officer recordings and in which, as in this film, the police seemed extraordinarily lax with the suspect. There is also the acclaimed short film Incident by Bill Morrison, composed entirely of officer footage. Now comes Geeta Gandbhir’s documentary 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 escalating series of neighborhood conflicts 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 address her about throwing objects at her children. The Police Inquiry and State Laws The arresting officers found evidence that the suspect had done internet searches into Florida’s “stand your ground” laws, which permit residents and others to use firearms if there is a reasonable belief of danger. The documentary constructs its narrative with the officer recordings generated during the multiple officer calls to the location before the killing, and then at the disturbing and disordered incident site itself – prefaced by emergency call recordings of Lorincz calling the police in a dramatically trembling voice. There is also jail video of Lorincz which has a disturbing, unsettling appeal. Portrayal of the Accused The film does not really suggest anything too complicated about the neighbor, or any mitigating factors. She is clearly unstable, although the kids are heard calling her “the Karen”, an ugly jibe. The film is presented as an illustration of how “stand your ground” laws generate unnecessary and heartbreaking bloodshed. But the fact of gun ownership and the constitutional right (that longstanding U.S. legal right that a deceased pundit notoriously said made firearm fatalities a necessary cost) is not much highlighted. Officer Questioning and Gun Culture It is possible to watch the police interrogation scenes here and feel astonished at how minimal concern the police took in this aspect. 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? Could it have been easily accessible and prepared? The police aren’t shown asking any of these undoubtedly important questions (though they could have inquired in recordings that didn’t make the edit). Or is possessing a firearm so normal it would be like asking about kitchen appliances or bread heaters? Detention and Consequences For what seemed to her local residents a extended period, the suspect was not even taken into custody and indicted, only detained and even provided accommodation away from home for the night (another point of comparison, by the way, with the a prior incident). And when she was finally officially taken into custody 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. Did the gentle handling up until that point encouraged her to think that this could be effective? Final Outcome and Judgment It was not successful; and the jury’s verdict is saved for the end titles. A deeply sobering picture of American crime and punishment.