The Perfect Neighbor - Netflix

[ohnonowwhat1]

Sorry if there is another thread, I couldn’t find it.

Ive just watched this documentary and can’t stop thinking about it.
Basically about a neighbourhood where kids are being kids and one neighbour takes huge exception to them and how it escalates.

A very interesting, very sad story which was well made. At times we probably saw a little too much but it was filmed and made entirely using police body cam and cctv.

At one point I was bawling my eyes out in one particular scene.

Although a harrowing watch it’s a good documentary.

The reality is it’s moments like that dad telling the children that made it such a powerful and thought provoking documentary. It won documentary of the year at sundance or similar before being taken up by Netflix.

Sadly I think this women's mental health and past life had a huge roll to play in this she was obviously suffering with a mental health possibly schizophrenia? PTSD from past trauma making her snappy, and edgy, possibly she had sociopathic tendancies, and I do think the kids teased her and their mother should have kept them on their side of the road, my kids don't play out like that tbh, either way she made a choice to shoot someone through a locked door instead of waiting for the police to turn up and trying to resolve it without killing someone. It's sad those poor kids have lost their mum 😞 and that women will die in jail. She had opportunities to move away why didn't she in the 2 years this was going on, but going by her refusing to go to jail, says it all.

I thought it incredibly powerful because it just let the facts speak for themselves without a narrative.

the documentary said so many things about American society without saying anything at all.

Because there is no evidence to say the kids/ neighbours weren't making her life hell. I couldn't be certain enough to convict.

I do wonder why she didn't move away considering she was renting.

If someone makes your life hell you do not have the right to shoot them . I don’t know why this would give you any reasonable doubt on a manslaughter charge

She was just a racist cunt. She couldn’t believe that these people- children- so beneath her, wouldn’t get in line as soon as she shouted at them to and was exasperated at the cheek of them not stopping playing and living in silence. Wouldn’t consider talking to their parents. Preferring to call the police on them instead. She would clearly fly into rages. We caught a glimpse of it when the police knocked at her door after she rammed her vehicle into the fence. She was shouting her head off before she realised it was the police.
She was inconvenienced by being taken into questioning after having just killed someone. She couldn’t believe she wouldn’t get to just go back to her usual life. Calculating individual feigning being shaken up and traumatised in her police call but her voice switched back to its normal tone like at the flip of a switch when asked about the neighbours.

Because the woman felt she was in fear for her life, I couldn't 100 per cent say without doubt she wasn't,not enough to convict her to a life in prison.

I agree @fatphalange

The way she acted by ramming her truck into the gates, hollering at the police until she realised it was them at her door. Then blamed her violent, overreaction on being frightened then too!?
Did she ever face charges on the damage to his property. Or if that stance worked then, was she trying it again with the shooting!!!

Those poor kids, that whole community traumatised and disrespected. When she knew exactly what she was doing.
25 years wasn't enough

Who's lanx was it that the kids were playing on? I got confused

You can’t kill someone who makes your life hell 😭

Totally agree- and the loss of control re the parking lot was never expanded on- was she charged, what happened… but as a poster above says what was left unsaid was very powerful too.

The woman banged on her door for less than 2 minutes. The door was locked and dead bolted and the woman had done nothing but bang and shout. The police were on their way

sorry but what kind of drama llama wimp would you be to be in fear of your life in that situation? There is no common sense to it at all.

I think she only had a tiny parcel of land, which the kids said they stayed off. The land she claimed was hers was actually part common land, and part her neighbour's land, from what I understood.

At least that is what her LL and her neighbor thought. She appeared to think it was all hers.

I think it was communal land. The woman “thought” it was hers then said later to a police officer she “thought” it belonged to her neighbour.

not sure about the way land works in the US but the design of her front yard (which was enclosed) made me think it was very unlikely the house was designed enclosed but included a huge patch of land outside of the enclosure with no view or access of it.

one of the first female police officers said “this is why I bought a house I didn’t want to deal with it” and waved her hand around which made me think that style of property or estate is designed with big communal patches between properties (some of them
looked like front gardens but I guess they were not)

it was very clearly a family neighbourhood with many children playing out.

Some kids being bloody irritating doesn’t make you fear for your life.

What do you think the mother was going to do through a bolted door with the police already on their way?

She said and did nothing to suggest she had a gun, and if someone was banging on my door and I was scared I would ring the police and hide at the back of my house, not kill them.

Wasn't it a metal security door too? I'm sure I read that somewhere. There is no way that lady was getting into her house before the police got there. She also did not sound scared on the 911 calls; she sounded pissed.

I thought it looked like a nice neighbourhood. Lots of open green space and kids all playing together with all the adults looking out for them. I cannot for the life of me understand why a single woman, who clearly wants quiet, would even consider moving there unless she moved for drama.

I don't know if she was ill. I do think the police sorta rolled their eyes at her instead of actually taking action. She should have been charged with wasting police time or vexatious reporting.

But you can there if you are in fear for your life and I couldn't be sure she wasn't.

She said she was going to kill her, she said she was frightened and couldn't find her phone, the police were taking their time. It wasn't the kids banging on the door .

You can if your life is threatened being in fear for your life isn’t a good enough reason to kill someone. She was perfectly safe, that is not under dispute

I think there was enough evidence to suggest she was a very angry person, probably psychopatic, and also very manipulative - and could play the victim. I don't think she was scared for her life - it was an opportunity to shoot and kill and get away with it. There was also no evidence she cared about the kids losing their mother.

I am halfway through watching this and my heart is breaking watching those poor children being told about their mum. 💔

There was 2 minutes between getting off the first call with the police and then calling back to say she had shot someone. She knew where her phone was. 2 minutes!

Watched this tonight after reading about it here. Gosh - that was hard hitting and very interesting. Thanks for starting a thread about it.

Just watched this and was totally gripped. It did remind me of that case in the uk in I think the late 90s where a farmer (?) shot a boy who broke into his garden and the farmer went to jail and at the time there were a lot of discussions and quite a bit of anger that he went to jail as there was a feeling by many in this country that you should be allowed to basically ‘shoot in self defence’.