‘The Perfect Neighbor’ Documentary: Racism, Law, and Humanity

By Sarah F. Dix, IPHA Student Intern, Training and Community Engagement Program

Imagine approaching a neighbor’s front door to address a neighborly dispute involving your child only to be met by bullets through a locked door. That was the fate of Ajike Owens, who was confronting an injustice against her child and was met with lethal force. The Perfect Neighbor is an American documentary that premiered on Netflix on October 17, 2025, about how Susan Lorincz, a 58-year-old Caucasian woman, shot her neighbor Ajike Owens, a 35-year-old African American mother. The documentary features a conglomeration of real-life footage from police body-cameras, detective interrogation footage, 911 audio call recordings, as well as neighborhood security footage that details the events surrounding a racially charged fatal shooting amongst neighbors. The Perfect Neighbor’ displays the violence, grief and raw emotion surrounding the death of Ajike Owens by her children, family, and community of neighbors and spotlights systemic racism in our own neighborhoods and legal practices.

Overview:     

The documentary begins with a predominately African American neighborhood in Ocala, Florida that was a close-knit community, featuring single mother Ajike Owens and her four children. AJ, as called by friends and family, developed a friendship with most of her neighbors and their children. Playdates and gatherings were common besides with one neighbor, Susan Lorincz. Lorincz harassed Owen’s children and others and accused them of trespassing for playing in a shared space that was adjacent to Lorincz’s property. Leading up to the fatal shooting, Lorincz made multiple unfounded 911 calls complaining about children being left unattended, noise complaints, as well as saying she received verbal threats from the children. All complaints were dismissed by police as “nuisance calls.” All of these complaints were also directed at African American children.

On June 2, 2023, an incident occurred where Lorincz called 911 and alleged that Owen’s children and other neighborhood children were trespassing and verbally threatening her. One of Owen’s sons informed her that Lorincz took his iPad and refused to return it to him. Between the 911 phone call at 8:54 PM by Lorincz and her follow-up call at 8:56 PM, Owens went to the duplex belonging to Lorincz and knocked on the door requesting to speak to Lorincz. While Owens was standing outside the front door with her two children, Lorincz shot through the closed and locked door, fatally striking Owens in the chest.

Why This Matters:

The Perfect Neighbor frontlines how racism and fear intersect with the law and humanity in this country. Stand your ground or similar laws are active in 31 states, which legally allows a person to defend themselves, even using deadly force, without a duty to retreat in a public or private place. Illinois currently recognizes the Castle Doctrine, which allows a person to defend themselves, even with deadly force, but only in their residence. This film spotlights an important ethical and moral question: when is fear deemed legitimate to result in force, especially deadly force? Regardless of whether fear is genuine, it is a defense we see far too often tied to racial bias. What appears like a law designated for protection becomes a shield for people to commit violent crimes fueled by prejudice instead of self-defense. Although Susan Lorincz was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 25 years in prison for the killing of Ajike Owens, her fear was the main defense in this case and other cases that are similar.

Multiple systemic failures occurred that led to the death of Ajike Owens. Law enforcement showed a lack of intervention strategies that could and should have deterred this tragedy from occurring. The police treated Lorincz’s racially motivated reports as a nuisance instead of a warning sign that a racially motivated crime could occur and chose to dismiss these signs instead of applying efficient interventions.  We saw a similar tragedy when George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin, also in Florida.

This is yet another example of how racial bias turns deadly in America. This tragedy began as a simple disagreement about children playing, not a violent crime. The biggest takeaway from this movie is how important it is to address prejudices we witness every day, because Susan Lorincz shows that the product of leaving racial bias and fear unaddressed results in more violence. Racism thrives when we look the other way and choose comfort over accountability. Ignorance is not bliss when people are being shot down in front of their children because the color of someone’s skin makes another ‘fearful.’ Uncomfortable conversations involving race, prejudice, and the reformation of laws and practices of police departments must occur. The cost of not speaking up can cause the unprovoked loss of a mother, daughter, and loved one. Ajike Owens lost her life, but exposed deep divisions that still exist in our society and legal systems.

Works Cited:

Dockterman, E. (2025, October 7). The shocking story behind Netflix’s “The Perfect Neighbor.” TIME.https://time.com/7326034/the-perfect-neighbor-netflix/

Netflix documentary The Perfect Neighbor. (2025, October 6). Netflix Tudum.https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/the-perfect-neighbor-documentary-release-date-news

Self-defense and “stand your ground.” (2024, September 19). Legal Information Institute. Cornell Law School. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/self-defense