This sounds like murder. But this is also America, where \u201cStand Your Ground\u201d laws apply in more than half of US states<\/a>. And that includes Florida, where Owens and Lorincz lived in the city of Ocala. The law states that people may use deadly force when they reasonably believe it to be necessary, in order to defend against certain violent crimes or in self-defence. Lorincz said she believed Owens had come to her house that night to kill her. \u201cI don\u2019t even actually remember picking up the gun,\u201d she told investigating officers<\/a> afterwards. \u201cI just remember shooting.\u201d<\/p>\n It took multiple days for Lorincz to even be arrested<\/a>. In that time, Owens\u2019s community mobilised to raise awareness of the injustice through placards and press interviews. Among them was film director Geeta Gandbhir, who over two days watched over 30 hours of police bodycam footage<\/a> obtained through a freedom of information request to try and understand the two-years-worth of frustrating events that led up to Owens\u2019 death. She knew what she\u2019d seen could inspire change, and went to Owens\u2019s mother, Pam, to ask if she could make a documentary. <\/p>\n The result is The Perfect Neighbour<\/a>, a harrowing 97-minute film, which won Gandbhir the Directing Award for US Documentary at this year\u2019s Sundance Film Festival. It is already pegged as a major contender at next year\u2019s Academy Awards. \u201cI wanted to share the pain and the tragedy,\u201d Owen\u2019s mother says of her brave decision to share the story of her daughter\u2019s death with the world. \u201cI needed the world to see what Stand Your Ground laws can do. What guns in the wrong hands can do. What racial violence looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n Susan Lorincz was an outlier in her small Ocala community. It was a street where families felt welcome and trusted those who lived nearby to look after their sons and daughters as if they were their own. \u201cThey were loving. They were caring for each other. The children felt safe,\u201d says Gandbhir. But Lorincz jeopardised that communal sense of safety and trust. Over the 12 months leading up to her shooting Owens, Lorincz rang 911 roughly a dozen times to report her neighbour\u2019s children \u2013 11-year-old girls with rollerskates, small boys playing basketball \u2013 for trespassing on the communal area outside her house.<\/p>\n The footage from the night of Owen\u2019s death is distressing. Her son, who stood nearby and watched his mother get shot, can be seen running back across the street sobbing and shouting for help. On police bodycam footage, we hear Pam weep down the phone as the news is broken to her that her daughter is dead. \u201cThere are no words to explain,\u201d she says today. \u201cWhen I got that call, I was in shock, even after\u2026\u201d Pam trails off. \u201cWe were used to speaking almost daily. There were times I picked up the phone to text or call her and then\u2026\u201d she welps, looking down at her hands as tears form in her eyes. \u201cWhen the film came together and I saw my daughter in that state\u2026 I think that\u2019s when reality set in.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat the community had to go through was something out of a horror film,\u201d reflects Gandbhir. \u201cSusan was dangerous. But the police dismissed her. They\u2019d come, again and again, and say, \u2018Oh, we\u2019ve dealt with this before \u2013 they just saw her as a nuisance. A frequent caller. She was actually a threat. But she weaponised her race and privilege against the community.\u201d Lorincz, a white woman, used hate speech against the children and, allegedly, flashed a gun before Owens\u2019s fatal shooting in 2023. Yet, police never warned her against abusing their services or harassing the neighbouring families. \u201cThey just tolerated her,\u201d says Gandbhir. \u201cThey failed. And they didn\u2019t protect Susan. It was the worst outcome for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Susan Lorincz in police bodycam footage used in ‘The Perfect Neighbour’ (Netflix)<\/p>\n When Lorincz was finally arrested days later, she was treated with unfathomable patience by the police. In one scene included in The Perfect Neighbour, officers tell Lorincz, who is sitting in custody, that she has been charged with manslaughter \u2013 but she refuses to get up from her chair in the interview room and walk to the jail. \u201cI just can\u2019t,\u201d she repeatedly tells three officers. They wait for minutes and minutes \u2013 never using force, never becoming brash or stern. \u201cHad she been a person of colour, they would have dragged her out of the room, I have no doubt,\u201d says Gandbhir. \u201cShe was a master manipulator and they didn\u2019t know how to handle her.\u201d<\/p>\n Research shows that homicides with white aggressors and Black victims are five times more likely to be ruled justifiable. In Stand Your Ground states, 45 per cent of cases with a white shooter and a Black victim were deemed justified, compared with just 11 per cent of cases with a Black shooter and a white victim<\/a>. In Florida, the state experienced a 32 per cent increase in gun homicides<\/a> after the Stand Your Ground law was enacted in 2005. The US Commission on Civil Rights has dubbed the legislation a \u201clicence to kill<\/a>\u201d, one that allows anyone to escalate minor disputes into a needless \u201cdeadly incident\u201d.<\/p>\n Lorincz was sentenced to 25 years in jail on 25 November, 2024. A judge ruled that she was motivated to shoot Owens \u201cmore by anger than fear\u201d and that \u201cat the time she fired the gun through the door, she was safe\u201d. Gandbhir breezes by this verdict in The Perfect Neighbour, inserting the courtroom footage beneath the film\u2019s credit sequence. \u201cI don\u2019t want anyone to feel that justice was done because Susan ended up in prison,\u201d the director explains. \u201cPrison shouldn\u2019t have been the answer. There is no happy ending here. But we really hope people are motivated to demand better for themselves and their community.\u201d <\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Pam Dias speaks at her daughter Ajike Owens\u2019s remembrance service in June 2023 (AP)<\/p>\n Since the film had its premiere in January this year, Owens\u2019s mother says she has heard countless stories from those who\u2019ve lost a loved one in a similar incident. \u201cI cannot tell you the amount of people who come and say that something has happened to them or something has happened to their family member,\u201d Pam says. Since her daughter\u2019s killing, she has launched the Standing in the Gap Fund<\/a> to support families impacted by racial violence. \u201cSadly it continues to happen in the US, time and time again,\u201d she continues. \u201cI\u2019m sure there\u2019ll be more cases. We definitely want reform. We want people to use their voices to make change.\u201d<\/p>\n Gandbhir hammers it home. \u201cYour community is a microcosm of the greater world,\u201d she says. \u201cSo, if we can justify killing our neighbour over a trivial dispute, what else can you justify? It paves the way to war, to genocide, to our acceptance of those things. It\u2019s how we become numb. In this film, you see people living together, loving each other, trusting each other. Being secure. All of that\u2019s destroyed, because of one outlier\u2019s access to guns and this Stand Your Ground law emboldening her. It never should\u2019ve happened.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Susan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-2025-10-10-at-12-09-26.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Pam](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Neighbor_Shooting_Florida_62322.jpg\")
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