The Perfect Neighbor Review: Unpacking a Infamous Shooting Through the Lens of a State Cop's Body Camera

The real-life crime genre has an innovative format, or perhaps even a completely fresh vocabulary and structure: officer-worn camera recordings. Faces of victims, witnesses and possible perpetrators appear suddenly to the cameras, sometimes in the harsh glare of headlights or flashlights as the officers approach, 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 waiting impassively while the other conducts the inquiry with what occasionally seems like extraordinary diffidence – though perhaps this is because they know they are being recorded.

A Growing Trend in Non-Fiction Cinema

We have previously seen the streaming service true-crime documentary American Murder: Gabby Petito, about the killing of an Instagram influencer by her partner, whose main point of interest was body cam footage and in which, as in this film, the law enforcement seemed surprisingly lenient with the suspect. There is also the acclaimed short film Incident by Bill Morrison, made exclusively of officer footage. Now comes Geeta Gandbhir’s documentary about the tragic incident of a Florida mother in Ocala, Florida, a African American woman whose children reportedly bothered and antagonized her white neighbour, Susan Lorincz. In 2023, after an increasing number of neighborhood conflicts in which the authorities were summoned multiple times, the accused fatally shot Owens 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 proof that the suspect had done online research into the state's self-defense statutes, which permit residents and others to shoot if there is a significant presumption of danger. The movie builds its story with the officer recordings generated during the multiple officer calls to the scene before the killing, and then at the disturbing and disordered incident site itself – prefaced by 911 audio material of the caller contacting authorities in a melodramatically shaky voice. There is also police cell footage of Lorincz which has a chilly, queasy fascination.

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 a derogatory term, an hurtful taunt. The film is showcased as an example of how self-defense regulations lead to unnecessary and heartbreaking violence. But the fact of gun ownership and the second amendment (that longstanding U.S. legal right that a deceased pundit notoriously said made firearm fatalities a necessary cost) is not much emphasized.

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 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 police aren’t shown asking any of these surely relevant questions (though they could have inquired in footage that didn’t make the edit). Or is possessing a firearm so normal it would be like asking about microwaves 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 detained and even provided accommodation away from home for the night (another point of comparison, by the way, with the Gabby Petito case). And when she was finally officially taken into custody in the detention area, there is an remarkable scene in which the individual simply refuses to stand, refuses to put her wrists out for the handcuffs, not aggressively, but with the courteously pathetic demeanor of someone whose psychological state means that she just can’t do it. Had the kid-gloves treatment up until that point led her to think that this might actually work?

Conclusion and Verdict

It didn’t; and the panel's decision is revealed in the closing credits. A deeply sobering portrayal of American crime and punishment.