Rewind: The Perfect Neighbor

0:00Rebecca Lavoie:I'm Rebecca Lavoie and this is You Can't Make This Up.

0:14Rebecca Lavoie:You Can't Make This Up is the podcast where we uncover the true stories behind your favorite Netflix documentaries and films. Today, we're revisiting one of the most thought-provoking and conversation-starting films from the past year. We'll return to our discussion of the Netflix documentary, The Perfect Neighbor. They shouldn't be screaming and, you know, running around either. I mean, parents aren't attending them. I understand it's a nuisance, but I'd rather kids be screaming because they're out here playing and have a good time than stealing cars and robbing people. Today, we're talking to director Geeta Ganbare and producer Nakan Kwantu.

0:48Rebecca Lavoie:In 2022, sheriff's deputies kept responding to the same Florida neighborhood for complaints from a woman about the noisy children playing near her home. Authorities found it was just kids being kids, but tensions mounted as parents grew frustrated that Susan Lorenz kept calling the police on their children. When one fed-up mom banged on Susan's door to confront her about her behavior, gunshots rang out. It left a family shattered and a neighborhood shaken. Told largely through police body cam footage, the Netflix documentary film The Perfect Neighbor offers a real-time look at the simmering dispute between a white woman and her black neighbors.

1:26Rebecca Lavoie:It reveals the petty complaints that started the conflict and the heart-wrenching grief when it ended. It also explores whether Lorenz tried to weaponize police against those living around her and whether she tried to exploit self-defense laws to commit murder. Have you ever heard of the term stand your ground? Have you ever done any kind of research on that?

1:56Rebecca Lavoie:Geeta and Nakan, welcome to You Can't Make This Up. Thank you for having us. Thank you. Geeta, you have a personal connection with the story of Ajaka Owens. Can you tell me about that? Sure. So Ajaka Owens was a family friend. She was very close to two of our relatives. Nakan is my life partner, so we are a married couple. And she was very close to two of our family members, one whom actually lived in Ocala, Florida, and was a part of her community. So the night that Ajaka was murdered, we got a phone call, like almost immediately. And that's when we sprung into action as sort of a media team for the family.

2:37And Nakan went down immediately. We got a call from my cousin, Takema Robinson, and her younger sister was one of Ajaka's best friends. And Takema came to New York because she wanted to go to Florida. And the quickest way to get to Florida at that time, ironically, was to come through New York from Jamaica, where she lived. And she and I went down to Ocala together and we wanted to raise awareness to what was happening. We wanted to raise awareness in the media and get it out there. A few months later, we got a bunch of footage from Anthony Thomas, who is the family's attorney. And he requested from the sheriff's department in Marion County all of the footage, all of the audio and media files surrounding Susan and this case every time she called the police, every time she made a call about the neighborhood kids.

3:35And that happened over the course of two years. So we got all of this footage and looked at it and realized that there was a story here that we didn't expect.

3:47Rebecca Lavoie:The craft of the film. I mean, the first thing that people will know about it will notice immediately is that it's, you know, the story is told through police body worn camera footage. Can you talk about that choice to not have, you know, talking heads, narrators, all of the things that a documentary like this might sometimes include? So when we saw the footage, it all came to us in a jumble. Honestly, it wasn't necessarily well organized. It was just on a thumb drive. I used to be an editor. So I took a couple of weeks to basically piece it together. Things had to be synchronized, audio, video, et cetera.

4:23There were multiple police on scene, depending on the night or the day that Susan was called. The number varied. And there was cell phone camera footage. There was detective interviews. There was ring camera footage. There was dash cam footage. There was a ton of material. And there were all the calls Susan made, like audio recordings. So I took two weeks and strung it all out. And that's when it really hit us that, as Nakan said, there was a bigger story. She will come outside, yell at them. Like, I have yelled at her before because these are children. I mean, everyone down this whole block has yelled at this lady because of how she talks to kids.

5:02And then when an adult says something, now she wants to call the police. The body camera footage was, one, undeniable. I think there was no reporter on the ground. We were not on the ground. no journalists, no one directing what was happening. So it was unbiased. I mean, obviously you have the police, so it is their perspective and the community interacting with them. But again, we felt that for an audience, they would see this as fact. And right now, there's so much, again, in this current climate, there's often a lot of doubt around the media that's purposefully the powers that be have created that.

5:40So it was important to us that let it be undeniable. And two, you really got to see in this footage what the community was like beforehand, before this big tragedy. Oftentimes, unfortunately, there's gun violence every week in this country, and you always see the aftermath. And I believe we have become somewhat numb to that. But here, because the body camera footage stretched back two years, we're able to recreate what this community was like. And you see a beautiful close-knit community living together, loving each other, raising children together, a diverse community. And Susan, this one outlier with a gun, what a threat she became and ultimately how she was able, because of her access to a gun, because she was emboldened by standing her ground laws, she was able to impact great harm on this community.

6:29Yeah.

6:29Rebecca Lavoie:These days so much is captured on that footage and also captured by bystanders who take their own footage, upload them to social media, or you see it on the news. You know, we often hear in journalism this show don't tell adage, right? So I'm wondering if you see this as a new form for documentary, like a cinema verite style thing where people are actually showing their own stories. This was such a unique way to make a film. One of the things that I started saying was after seeing this, you know, we've watched this film probably 100, 200 times. And the thing that comes to mind is that oftentimes when the police would come out, they would come in pairs at the very least and sometimes more up to 15 times, especially like the night of.

7:19Our editor and Geeta took this footage and made it seem like it was one camera. And that's such a great task to take on and then to make it work. And that body camera footage is so expressive because people are just themselves and you're just seeing this community as itself. So it's a very interesting way and new way to tell stories. I'm concerned about it because, you know, now that we've done this and we talk about this within the team, is that what will this do moving forward? You know, will it change policies? Will it make the police decide that they want to pull back? Will it? Who knows what will happen?

8:02I think it's a great tool at this point. I think it's a very I think it's a great tool.

8:06Rebecca Lavoie:You mentioned that much of this is through the police's point of view because it is their cameras. Right. And I'm able to infer right away that the police kind of feel like they know what's going on here. You know, we have this one neighbor who's the source of all of these complaints. And they seem to feel like they have a handle on it. And they're sort of treating everybody as if, yeah, we're all in this together. We know it's her. Do you feel, Nakan, when you look at the raw footage, you get a sense early on that maybe they should have known or that somebody should have thought that something was happening?

8:40Rebecca Lavoie:Or was it truly, did it truly just seem like a nuisance for a long time? Well, I think what happens is for the police, there's some bias there, right? Or maybe not some bias, there's just a general bias, right? And so there's an assumption that Susan is just a nuisance. Maybe they can see her as an auntie, you know, or crazy old family member. But for the Black community, they didn't look at the Black community as people being harmed. Right. They looked at the black community and some of these people weren't necessarily black, but they didn't see them as people who needed protecting and therefore they didn't treat them.

9:16They didn't give them the tools to be protected. They just like, as you said, we're all in this together. She's a nuisance to all of us. And they didn't see Susan as the threat that she actually was. I think what becomes clear is that they failed in their jobs with that. So, yeah.

9:34Rebecca Lavoie:Yeah. Kita, can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I think it's easy to watch this and say, oh, well, the police are being really kind to these kids. They're, you know, they want them to play outside. They're giving them advice to avoid this woman. But the kids are largely, you know, they're people of color, right? And this woman is white. I mean, do you think they understand that it lands different, it hits different, it means something different in this neighborhood than it might mean in a different neighborhood? We deliberately made a choice to let the footage speak for itself using the materials that we had.

10:08Again, we wanted an immersive and undeniable film. And I think what you see is that Susan again and again tries to weaponize her race and privilege against the community. And she tries to weaponize the police. Her children were walking their dog on the property. Clearly says no trespassing. And they're always walking their dog. The girls always take a call. and just poop on the sidewalk, there's all kinds of stuff. I said, can you please get the dog over there? I was going to take a picture of her dog, and I said, can you take a picture of my child? I'm like, no. And then she just got in my face.

10:39And ultimately, because she is able to use her status to get them to think that she constantly tries to get them to believe she is the victim, they ultimately don't. But at the same time, they don't see her as a threat. And what made her a threat was her access to weapons, her access specifically to a gun. She would have maybe just been the nuisance, crazy old lady if she, again, if she hadn't been emboldened by stand your ground. And if she couldn't buy a gun the way she could buy like a toaster oven or a microwave. It's interesting in a review from Europe, that was a question like, is this really what people can do no matter what their state of mind might be in the US?

11:22And it's unfortunately, that's true. They failed the community and they failed Susan. Right. They didn't protect Susan from herself. The worst outcomes happened. Ajika, we lost Ajika. She was murdered. And Susan basically is to spend the rest of her life in prison. So the community and Susan were both failed by the system.

11:43Rebecca Lavoie:Gita, you had presumably hours, hundreds of hours of footage to go through, right? You feel as a viewer when you're watching this, I mean, obviously there's a sense of dread that you know something bad is going to happen, but there's also some very natural suspense here because you see all the tensions at play from the very beginning. How did you feel when you saw some of these early scenes? How did you feel watching them? This process was really grief work for us in many ways. We were, again, we felt really compelled to tell this story because we couldn't understand how this could happen. How does someone pick up a gun to resolve such a trivial dispute with your neighbor, right?

12:26Or with a neighbor. We couldn't believe that this would be someone's choice. And we, again, felt compelled to go through all the material and glean from it all the information we could. It was our process, in a way, of coming to terms with what had happened. So there was heartbreak in it. But we also saw in this beautiful little community so much joy. Again, this material shows us both the best and worst of our society. It shows us this idyllic street where children play freely. They're clearly very comfortable. One of our IPs, Soledad O 'Brien, has said, these are the kiddiest kids you've ever seen.

13:10And I think what is so important about that is that often after a crime happens, particularly a community of color, we are often criminalized. And you see with these children that they were indeed children, right? Like we are oftentimes children are adultified and you cannot think of these children as anything other than kids just being themselves playing in the street. But I also see the beauty in the neighbors. Like for example, the mother who says, you know, when the cops ask her, she's a, which kid is yours? She said, oh, they're all mine. You know, the father comes out and says, you know, I look after these kids like they're my own.

13:48I get it. I understand. It's like, I agree. It's like the kids. That's why we don't, we don't somehow act at all crazy about it. You know, we all, all the parents are cool. Yeah.

14:01Rebecca Lavoie:I look at them just like I look out from home. So I think that gave me hope and that gives us inspiration. And we hope that people take away from this movie, not just the sadness of the tragedy, but also, you know, the sense that the best of America does still exist and needs to be protected. You know, I think one of the best moments in the film happens when the girl explains to the police that Susan is accusing them of trying to steal her truck and she yells out, we're 11, right? I can't help but wonder, you know, there is this ideal picture of all these young kids playing It is so lovely, but I couldn't help but wonder in that moment how the interaction would have changed if the neighborhood kids had been 18 instead of 11, how their interactions with law enforcement may have changed.

14:47Rebecca Lavoie:Nakhan, what do you think about that? Yeah, I think it would have changed, but I think it's also very important to keep in mind that they were mostly 12 and under, right? And I think that this idea of of adultifying these children and they were playing. I was a kid once. Everyone was a kid once. We're all loud as kids. We like to yell and scream and fight. And so I get it. But when it's close to someone's house, sure, it gets a little annoying sometimes. I won't lie. OK. But if you guys have permission to be over there, then, you know, I can't really get on you guys too much. Yeah, possibly if they were 18, if they were older teenagers, this might have gone in a different direction.

15:29But this wasn't 18 year olds. These weren't 18 year olds. These were these were children. And as Geeta said, they were the kiddiest kids. Did they do things that possibly they shouldn't have done? As one of the police officers says, yeah, they made ding dong ditch. OK, fine. But that should not escalate to a deadly weapon.

15:48Rebecca Lavoie:No, it should be delightful behavior in this era of screen time. Right. Right. We usually get very, very positive feedback. Maybe a couple of times we've had people question whether the kids were to blame. And I said to the person, you must remember that the children were playing and Susan found it necessary to bring out a gun. This was not a gunfight. This wasn't two different sides of this argument shooting at each other. There were children playing and Susan brought a gun and shot through a door. She was just completely reckless about it. Geeta, this mostly plays out in the neighborhood, but there's one scene that doesn't involve the neighbors and that's an incident with Susan's truck.

16:30Rebecca Lavoie:How does that fit into the larger story? So I think what we see in the footage, in the trajectory of the footage, which we chose to keep chronological so that people could see the build, is that Susan with, you know, again, this is not an interaction with the neighborhood, but she shows erratic behavior. She shows that she is possibly unstable. She gets trapped in a tow pound. We don't see that, but we see the aftermath where the police come to her because apparently after being locked into a tow pound, instead of calling the number that she should have called so the guy could open the door, she rammed her truck repeatedly into the gate of the tow pound and damaged the gate.

17:11and then claimed during the interaction with the police that she had a panic attack, et cetera, et cetera. And so I panicked. I mean, I really panicked. And I thought I was in trouble. Like, I thought someone was going to harm me. Okay. So here's the issue that we're going to have, all right? He wants somebody to pay for his gate because you severely damaged his gate. I was severely damaged her. I mean, I'm okay. I just freaked out. Okay. This really begs the question, should someone like Susan, given those circumstances, have access to two guns? Again, I think what we see in that scene is she is spiraling.

17:53She has been continuously trying to criminalize the community and weaponize her privilege, but also she dehumanizes the kids in the community. And in the process, honestly, when we dehumanize others, we actually dehumanize ourselves and we become the monster. And I think you see that happening through the film. And that scene is so important because it's one of the last ones before the actual shooting takes place. And we see in that the cops don't flag her still. How does she have a gun? How does she have two guns?

18:33Rebecca Lavoie:nikan i'm wondering if you can remind me about the night of the shooting itself was this a typical incident with susan was it a different kind of incident with susan how did ajika end up being killed by susan that particular day if you remember in the way the film goes she goes to the police precinct and she complains about the children and the police officer says to her do you want something to happen? Do you want them to be arrested or something else? And she says, yes, I want something to happen. Do you want to see them go to jail or do some sort of recourse for it? Yeah, absolutely. I like being honest with you, right?

19:12So they know what exactly they're having done for them. This is basically just going to be an official case document because the people have video proof. I think at that point, and probably prior to that, she had made up her mind that if the police don't do something, I'm going to take matters into my own hands. I think that that became her mindset when there was this dispute over the iPad. And then she tells Ajaka's second oldest son to go get your mother. They do just that. But when she calls the police after that interaction, so this is the first call she makes on the night of the incident, she says that she fears for her life from the children, not Ajaka.

19:58Is he out there right now? Yeah, there are several kids out there right now and I'm hearing from her life. I'm very scared. Were there any weapons involved? No. Again, she's adultifying and she's creating this hostile situation with children because why is she calling the police about fear for her life?

20:19Rebecca Lavoie:Right. Right. What could they have possibly said or done over an iPad interaction that made her afraid for her life? Right. So she had already decided she was going to take an action. There are a handful of just emotionally devastating moments in this film. One is when an officer asked if Ajika-san is hurt. Are you hurt? No. Oh, my heart is broken. I know. Did that break your heart watching that? I mean, it broke mine. No, the whole thing has broken my heart. Absolutely. I think what actually, though, I will say this, the children finding out that their mother is gone is one of the most heart-rending things that I think none of us have recovered from.

21:07But I will say personally, listening to Pam, Pamela Dias on the phone, when she is on the phone and she's understood that her daughter is gone is probably for me personally i have children the idea of losing a the of losing a child is unthinkable

21:30at this point there's nothing we can do for a parent it's a parent's worst nightmare so and pamela has become family to us so it is that to me is actually personally the most devastating moment of the film. I think though, what is so interesting that you see on that night is you see the community come out and try to protect the children and protect this family. And at possible risk of their own life, they surround Ajaka and they, you know, Susan is in the house still with the gun. Who knows if she's coming out, but they, You see also this beautiful community spring into action in a way that I think is profound and just tells you about the bond that they had and what, again, the damage that Susan was able to do because of her access to a gun.

22:23And as Nakan said, we believe this was something that even in her later, as you see, in the interrogation, she says, you know, I would call sometimes and you all wouldn't come. The fact that she had researched Stand Near Ground and she kept sticking to the concept that even though she was behind a locked metal door and had another layer of protection, she kept sticking to the tenets of Stand Near Ground, which are I was afraid for my life. I was afraid for my life. And I think all of those elements play in. And we wanted to make this film play like a thriller because to me it were a thriller or a horror film because that's what it was for this community.