In Florida, a neighbourhood spat escalates over two years into a fatal crime, exposing the depth of race issues in the US and the injustice baked into the controversial 'Stand Your Ground' laws.
In The Perfect Neighbor, director Geeta Gandbhir traces the fatal shooting of mother-of-four Ajike Owens, using bodycam footage from dozens of police visits to her suburban street and subsequent interrogation room CCTV. She reveals a devastating story from a tight-knit community and a seemingly avoidable tragedy and its consequences.
Ahead of the film’s release at Bertha DocHouse, we spoke with director Geeta Gandbhir and Ajike’s mother, Pamela Dias, about honouring Ajike’s legacy, the danger of ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws and the use of body cam footage in documentary film.
Geeta, I understand you had a close personal connection to Ajike’s family. Could you talk about how the idea for the film came about?
GG: Ajike was a family friend through my husband’s side (Nikon Kwantu, who is also a producer of the film). On the night that Ajike was shot, we got a call and Nikon was quickly on the ground with the family and Pam. As we’re in media, we were tasked with trying to bring the media presence to this story and make sure it stayed live in the news. Since laws like ‘Stand Your Ground’ exist, we were deeply concerned that Susan would get off, as she wasn’t immediately arrested. It took four days while they were doing the investigation. About two months in, we realised there was all this body camera footage.
Pam’s attorney, Anthony Thomas, who works with Benjamin Crump – a very well-known civil rights attorney – had done a Freedom of Information Act with the Marion County Sheriff’s department and they had released the footage. We realised it went back two years. That was something we had never seen. Usually, with this type of crime, you have footage from the day of the crime, or if you’re lucky, the couple of days before, but not two years. You really saw what unfolded leading up to the incident.
Of course, I went to Pam, and I said: “This is my only skill. I think there’s something here, should we pursue this?”. And she agreed. Pam is the bravest person I know. We had a lot of conversations about Emmett Till’s mother, Mamie. She wanted the whole world to know what happened to her child. She had an open casket funeral, and invited reporters. It’s in the same ethos that we made this film.
Pam, it sounds like you were involved in the making of the film from the very beginning. I wonder what your initial reaction was to the decision to make a film about Ajike’s story?
PD: It was really important to me that the story be told. Geeta referenced Mamie Till and I’m deeply honoured to be in that same conversation as her. But it was important, and I knew the story might be told by someone else. I trusted Geeta and her team to tell it accurately and to tell the truth. It was important that the world knew what happened to my daughter, and the broader message of how laws like ‘Stand Your Ground’ affect communities of colour. I never once doubted Geeta. I wasn’t involved in the day-to-day, only the green light. And when I saw the finished product, I was blown away. Geeta did an amazing job of portraying the story accurately, of portraying who my daughter was as a mother, of portraying the community and their togetherness. So I was honoured that Geeta saw fit to share with the world.
Body cam footage is often a violent tool of the police. It’s a tool of surveillance, used to criminalise and dehumanise vulnerable communities, particularly communities of colour. In this, we saw this incredible opportunity to subvert that narrative and flip it on its head.
Geeta Gandbhir
Using body cam footage is a striking way to tell this story. There’s a tradition of found footage and archive storytelling in documentary, but the body cam footage adds a sense of immediacy. Could you talk about the decision to tell the story in this way?
GG: We’d been filming on the ground to try and capture pieces for the media, the funeral vigils, and being with the family from the moment it happened. But again, we didn’t necessarily think there was a whole documentary there. We were just in action. When we saw the body camera footage, we realized there was this incredible opportunity. First of all, we knew that it would be undeniable to viewers. I think that was really important to us collectively, because oftentimes, people don’t believe the survivors of a crime, but with this, you could really see in detail the dynamics of the community versus Susan, who was an outlier. One outlier, and her access to a gun changed everything. Body cam footage is often a violent tool of the police. It’s a tool of surveillance, used to criminalise and dehumanise vulnerable communities, particularly communities of colour. In this, we saw this incredible opportunity to subvert that narrative and flip it on its head.
In the footage, you see who the community was before. This beautiful, diverse, interracial community living together, raising children together. It’s what anybody would want for their children. I think that was really important, because so often, people of colour are dehumanised in the aftermath of a crime. Somehow it’s our fault. You see that with Trayvon Martin and with other cases like this. We wanted to make sure that didn’t happen to Ajike and this community. There are moments in the footage when you see this. For example, the police ask one of the neighbours which of the children were hers. And she says: “They’re all mine.” A father comes out and says: “I look out for these kids like they’re my own.” It was such a supportive, loving place. The kids felt secure to be out on the street, they knew they could go to anyone. The night that it happened, Isaac [Ajike’s son] knew exactly where to go.
It shows what happens when an outlier like Susan weaponises the police. She called many, many times. She weaponises the police against the community and was emboldened by ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws. We hope that this film can impact hearts and minds and help steer policy change. These laws pave the way to polarisation. When you see your neighbour as dangerous and not someone that you can talk to, that’s how authoritarian governments take control. By making us feel unsafe in our own communities.
That you have two years of footage also points to the fact that there were police failings in not de-escalating the tensions. They were repeatedly called out to the neighbourhood but failed to take any action.
GG: When we received the footage, this was a really hard task. It wasn’t logged or catalogued. There were date and time stamps but we didn’t know which camera was connected to which audio. I had an amazing editor, Viridiana Lieberman. She and I spent a lot of time trying to dissect the footage. There were about 30 hours in total, including calls. There was ring camera footage, detective interviews and body cam footage. And the police all didn’t turn on their cameras at the same time. We tried to establish that in the footage by showing them turning them on, turning them off. Sometimes there were two cops on scene, sometimes there were fifteen. Piecing this together and making a coherent story out of it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But I think what you see in the footage is the repetition of, again, Susan trying to weaponise the police. The police didn’t see Susan as a threat, they just saw her as a nuisance. It was her race and her privilege that allowed her to do this. Had it been reversed, had Ajike been the one calling the police, this would have never happened because she would have been seen as a threat.
By the third time Susan called, she should have been flagged as problematic. Even after showing erratic behaviour like crashing her truck repeatedly into the fence of a tow pound, she wasn’t flagged. So ultimately, the system failed the community. They never protected that beautiful community from Susan, and they didn’t protect the children when she was using hate speech. But the system also failed Susan. The worst possible outcome has happened which is that we lost Ajike and Susan is in prison for pretty much the rest of her life. And that is not a win. There’s justice, but justice is always bittersweet. This is what we’re hoping to showcase. The police may have been polite. They didn’t come in guns blazing or throw anybody onto the ground and cuff them, but in that time they could have seen Susan for the threat she really was, and it didn’t happen.
There’s some truly devastating moments in the film that have stayed with me long after watching it. On the night that Ajike was killed, we see her children finding out that she has passed. I wonder if you had any reservations about including those private moments in the film?
GG: Honestly, every day we rethink this. All the time, we think about what we are doing. Is this opening things up again for the community? Is this doing more harm than good? We have to ask ourselves that, but honestly, Pam has been the strength behind us, and she can speak to that.
PD: I’ve always considered a few things. One, how would this affect my grandkids? Two, how would it affect the community? This is something that once it’s out in the world, it’s out there forever. I was thinking about how this would affect their grieving and their pain. And then I thought about the change that could come about from this story. We all know this story is a tragedy. But I wanted the world to see beyond the hurt, the pain, the tragedy we’re all experiencing. I wanted Ajike’s legacy to be one of hope, of change. And when I thought about it from that aspect, I had to proceed. This message is too powerful to stay amongst ourselves. The world needs to know my daughter was young. She had hopes and dreams. All of that was taken from her in an instant. But like I said, I want her memory to be a positive change maker for the society that we live in.
She always said: “The world is going to know my name.” She wanted to be an entrepreneur. She had a whole life ahead of her. So I couldn’t sit on this. It was like her prophecy was being fulfilled.
GG: That was the last conversation they had. Ajike used to tell her all the time that she had these big plans. And Pam would laugh in the way moms do. But Ajike said just wait, they’re going to know my name. That was their last conversation. We need to say her name. This is a campaign around police violence and gun violence. We feel we need the broadest range of people to see this. That’s how policy changes.
The film emerges as a tribute to Ajike and her community. Do you have any final comments about your hopes for this film, both in terms of honouring Ajike’s legacy and raising awareness about the issues raised?
PD: Like I said, it can’t just be about our pain and our loss and our suffering. It’s unfortunate that this type of violence will happen again. We have gun issues and racial issues going on. I just hope that this opens the eyes and hearts of people collectively, and that we rally together and make our voices heard.
When this all happened to my family, myself, along with Geeta and the beautiful Takema Robinson, formed a fund called the Standing in the Gap Fund, which supports families who have been impacted by racial gun violence. When it happened to me, I lost my daughter and I had to come in and be the caretaker for my grandchildren. I left my home, I left my job, and I wasn’t prepared for this: the financial cost, the grief. So Standing in the Gap supports families financially, whether through counselling, whether to help with burial costs or relocation.
It’s meant to support families in their time of need, because it lessens that one burden, that one thing that they have to think about. So we’re actually standing in the gap for families. It’s in honour of my daughter, Ajike, and I think she would be really proud of the work that we’re doing. We’re just hoping to show that in spite of all the hate that is going on in the world today, there is still love and there still is community.
GG: For us, if we can change hearts and minds and make people see. The battle against gun laws in the US is an uphill one. As artists, we do think that we can chip away at it. And we think this film makes a difference. And we do it in Ajike’s name. We really believe that she would have wanted this. She would not have wanted us to be still and to sit at home and cry. She would have wanted us to be out in the world talking about what happened and making sure that people remember her name.
The Perfect Neighbor shows from Friday 10 October.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.