Director Geeta Gundbir’s re-enactment of the event has no narration or relies on interviews with witnesses, instead being filmed by a doorbell camera that captures the sound of gunshots and the voice of Owens’ son yelling to call 911. Police body cameras tracked emergency workers as they tried to help Owens after he was shot. The camera then relentlessly follows the children’s father as he breaks the news to them that their mother is “not coming back.” And a camera inside the police car shows Susan Lorintz, who was not arrested, sitting in the back seat as a neighbor yells, “Why did you do that?”
Ms Gundbil told the BBC that she first came up with the idea for the video because she was a friend of Owens’ family. Lawyers representing the Owens family have asked police for documents, and the Owens family wants to know if they have any information to keep the case in the news. “There was approximately 30 hours of video related to this incident, including doorbell cameras, body cameras, cell phone footage, detective interviews with community members, and recordings of Susan’s conversations with police as she called police over and over again,” Gundbiel said. “It was tough, but I managed to get through it. That’s when I realized this could be a movie.”
According to the footage, officers were first called to Lorincz’s address in February 2022 for an altercation with Ajike Owens, at which time Lorincz claimed there had been an altercation with Owens. A “No Trespassing” sign was posted. It belonged to Lorincz and was aimed at her, hitting her in the leg (Owens said she threw it on the ground and not at her neighbor). No one was arrested.
Lorincz called 911 complaining that local children, including Owen’s children, were tormenting her, and police were called several times over the next year. “I’m a single woman, I work from home, I’m peaceful and I’m a perfect neighbor,” Lorincz said in another call to police when she complained about neighbor kids playing soccer on the lawn near her home.
Source: BBC Culture – www.bbc.com
