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.

I think she was the woman in it quite near the beginning. Standing against her car on the driveway. The first time the police attended and the female police officer was speaking to her.

That's what I thought.

Yes we saw her at the beginning of the documentary. When we first saw the police come out and I think Susan had accused AJ of throwing a sign at her.

She would have been told her rights which included getting a lawyer. I don’t think it’s automatically free at the station like it is in the uk but there are free or low cost options for seniors and those on low income,and these can be appointed before the Police begin questioning. However from experience some people are so arrogant that they think they can manage without a lawyer and can speak for themselves. They also seem to buy in to the erroneous idea that if you’re innocent you don’t need a lawyer. I know it said she had been googling ‘Stand Your Ground’ legislation and she kept repeating ‘I was frightened’ and ‘I shot through’ fear so it’s entirely possible as an elderly white woman she thought all she needed to do to get out of it was repeat that and she didn’t need legal representation.

I thought the pastor nailed the funeral/memorial service. Addressing head on the inevitable feelings of guilt her children would be experiencing and reframing that. I thought it was great how loving and supportive their neighbours and community were. I also thought the American police came across pretty balanced and reasonable. I was surprised she wasn’t immediately arrested and also surprised that she wasn’t charged with murder. Although the sentencing out there almost makes it irrelevant.

I did feel that showing us the kids receiving the news of death was unnecessary. At that point they could have showed pictures of the lady to confirm who she was again or a nice family pic. I am sure British tv would not allow that sort of intrusive footage. How can they consent to it being shown? (I assume their dad consented for them)

It was very harrowing viewing but I do think it was necessary to show the human impact of that awful woman’s actions. They are clearly a hard working, dignified family who are doing their best to make something positive out of this horrible tragedy.

Racists like Susan Lorincz don’t believe people like AJ are equal to them, she almost certainly thinks her actions were justified because AJ’s life just doesn’t matter to her.

What amazed me was that in the USA the police actually attend for children making a noise and trespassing.

I think it was necessary for the documentary to make the impact it has

I thought this 😂 particularly as it appeared to be quite a distance each time the police attended (I know Florida is huge obv!)

but as I said above I didn’t understand why they kept attending but taking no action (as far as we saw) such as their equivalent of an anti social behaviour order (against her)

I think in the uk it might’ve escalated earlier - ie someone would’ve ended up in court and someone would’ve been stopped, starting with notices and warnings and ending in prison for repeated violations of those orders. It sounds almost petty and harsh in comparison to what happened in the US but really demonstrates the value of preventive/ proactive policing

I must admit that I did begin to think the kids (and parents) were probably antagonising her/the situation a little. When you hear kids saying things like "we're just kids" and things like that, it very much sounded like the adults talking. I think they realised the police weren't interested and took that to mean they could do as they wish.

BUT, I do not think they were doing anything than just being quite annoying to someone who clearly hates kids. And the fact she shot that mother through a closed, steel door - Crazy.

I found her 911 call after the shooting interesting. She is initially hyperventilating and very suddenly starts telling the operator with a stern, steady but angry voice about how she hates the kids. Manipulative, awful cretin of a woman.

Watching the actual moment those kids were told she isn't coming home was awful. I think that scene will stay with me a long time. I was relieved justice prevailed eventually because I too was astounded she wasn't kept in custody while the investigation took place. It absolutely highlights the deep levels of racism, even where it should least be found.

As a side note, did anyone else find it odd in the scene where the officer went to arrest her after she rammed her truck into the fence, that he seemed to have to read the Miranda rights from a card in his wallet? What was that about? Surely it wasn't because he couldn't remember them.

My understanding is “read them their rights” means exactly that, read it off the card.

It was very good! I think the whole situation was pretty toxic, I think Susan should have moved home, some situations are never going to work. I suspect the kids did some antagonising as well as her, but living next to that grassed area just isn’t something she could have ever lived next to because things irritate her too much.
i thought the judge saying that she shot out if anger rather than fear summed it up for me

If she wanted to claim that she'd acted in fear, perhaps her defence should have been 'I stole the child's tablet and threw roller skates at his head. I knew that would enrage any normal parent, so I was genuinely fearful of the consequences of my shitty actions.'

You can’t just keep some in custody ‘whilst you do an investigation’. You have to charge someone with something to keep someone in custody. Even in the Uk you can generally only keep someone in custody for 24 hours without charging (and that includes allowing the prisoner 8hrs rest). Even in exceptional circumstances in the Uk the max is 96 hours. I’m not sure if the rules in the US but I see loads of cases where people aren’t charged for years and years when in the UK they would have been charged and remanded from the outset.

In this case the offender was in her house and shot through a locked door so the whole defence of Stand Your Ground and there would be a lot of investigation required to call it in to question. I think matters would have been different if she’d walked out of her house and walked over to AJ and would have struggled to find any sort of defence
so matters may have been quicker.

I had the opposite opinion than most on this thread. I actually felt sorry for her, those parents and kids clearly antagonised her to the point where she broke. I'm not saying at all that someone deserved to be shot dead, but it happens sometimes where someone is pushed to the absolute breaking point they end up doing something stupid out of anger and end up the one in the shit.

It’s probably a bit of both. I don’t think or saw any evidence that the parents antagonised her but I do think the kids probably did a bit because unfortunately that’s what kids do and so she was a target in that sense. But she was also lying saying things like the kid threw his puppy in her truck (when it was bigger then the kid) and filming them playing on the grass area they were allowed to be on. So there was probably a bit of antagonising going on from both sides.
The situation was toxic and needed better intervention I think.

imo She got the right sentence though because 2 mins after calling the police, shooting like that through a door is not the answer. She didn’t even know if it was a kid behind the door. The judge got it spot on I think that she shot in anger not fear.

it’s a desperately sad story that didn’t need to escalate the way it did.

Any reasonable person who was afraid would have locked themselves in the bedroom with the gun(s) and prayed they weren't forced to use it before the Police arrived, not shot through a deadbolted, reinforced door at what could easily have been a young child.

I do agree the kids antagonised her, but from what I saw she started most, if not all of it. Standing in her porch, filming them on her mobile, for example. She had multiple motion activated cameras around her house (that conveniently were not working at the time of the shooting). She didn't need to be standing in their eyeline filming them, she did that to provoke a reaction from them, which she got because they're kids.

Neighbour disputes are absolutely hellish if you have ever had one it does initially make you have some empathy for Susan. Feeling like your home is not a safe place is one of the most stressful things I’ve ever experienced and for those saying she could just move- well in the uk legally you have to declare any issues with neighbours which would make selling a house very difficult. I’m sure at one point it said she owned the house.
. The police did come across as kind but I’m not sure all the fist bumps etc was the right thing and it didn’t feel like they were very proactive or assertive. It felt like they were tip toeing around and wrongly or rightly the whole neighbourhood was against Susan. yes she made herself a target and was a racist, likely had a personality disorder and obviously killing someone is abhorrent but that must have been a horrible situation to live in.

She was a renter.

also my understanding is even in the uk there is a nuance to what is a dispute to declare- and hating children playing outside isn’t really a dispute.
Obviously the next resident may well have zero problem with it- we can’t expect everyone’s personal incompetence at dealing by with everyday situations to be considered a dispute that impacts a legal transaction.

had it been a genuine boundary issue (not that you can have a boundary issue with a load of kids) then that absolutely would’ve been a debatable dispute in the uk. Arguing with the local kids, debatable.

edited for double post

She was the nightmare neighbour. Which is an understatement.

one of the dads said she owned her house and the families rented.
you would have to declare it if you were involving the police. It would be pretty easy for a potential buyer to find that out.

I thought she said she was thinking of buying it but was going to move away instead. Maybe she gave her neighbours the impression she owned it - yet at the same time she openly talked about her landlord and the signs he supposedly put up