The Perfect Neighbor Review: Examining a Infamous Shooting Via the Lens of a State Officer's Body-Cam

The true crime genre has a new medium, or perhaps even a completely fresh vocabulary and grammar: officer-worn camera recordings. Faces of victims, witnesses and potential offenders loom up to the cameras, sometimes in the harsh glare of headlights or torches as the officers approach, their faces and voices expressing caution or panic or indignation or suspiciously contrived innocence. And we frequently incidentally glimpse the expressions of the law enforcement personnel, one standing by blankly while the other conducts the inquiry with what sometimes seems like remarkable hesitation – though perhaps this is because they are aware they are being recorded.

An Emerging Pattern in Non-Fiction Cinema

We have already had the streaming service true-crime documentary The Gabby Petito Case, about the killing of an social media personality by her partner, whose main point of interest was body cam footage 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 officer footage. Now comes a new film by Geeta Gandbhir about the grim case of Ajike Owens in Ocala, Florida, a woman of colour whose children reportedly bothered and tormented her neighbor, a local resident. In 2023, after an escalating series of neighbour-dispute incidents in which the police were summoned multiple times, Lorincz fatally shot Owens through her closed front door, when Owens went to Lorincz’s house to address her about hurling items at her children.

The Police Inquiry and State Laws

The investigating authorities found proof that the suspect had done online research into Florida’s “stand your ground” laws, which permit householders and others to use firearms if there is a reasonable belief of danger. The movie constructs its narrative with the officer recordings captured during the multiple officer calls to the location before the killing, and then at the disturbing and disordered incident site itself – introduced by emergency call recordings of the caller calling the police in a melodramatically shaky voice. There is also jail video of the individual which has a chilly, queasy fascination.

Depiction of the Suspect

The film does not really suggest anything too complicated about Lorincz, or any mitigating factors. She is clearly unstable, although the kids are heard calling her a derogatory term, an ugly jibe. The film is showcased as an example of how “stand your ground” laws lead to unnecessary and heartbreaking bloodshed. But the reality of gun ownership and the constitutional right (that longstanding U.S. legal right that a deceased pundit notoriously said 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 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? How was the gun kept in her home? Was it just on the couch, loaded and ready? The authorities aren’t shown asking any of these undoubtedly important questions (though they may have done in footage that were not included). Or is gun ownership so commonplace it would be like asking about microwaves or bread heaters?

Detention and Consequences

For what seemed to her local residents a very long time, 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 point of comparison, incidentally, with the a prior incident). And when she was ultimately formally arrested in the holding cell, there is an extraordinary sequence in which Lorincz simply declines to rise, refuses to put her wrists out for the cuffs, not hostilely, but with the politely self-pitying air of someone whose psychological state means that she is unable to comply. Did the gentle handling 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 deeply sobering portrayal of American crime and punishment.