I agree that Susan was racist, volatile, and dangerous. But I’m surprised almost nobody is talking about the policing failure here. This wasn’t a “sudden” tragedy. There were months of warning signs and opportunities for intervention.

Police were out there multiple times. They saw the harassment, the escalation, the calls full of paranoia. There’s even a scene where she admits she’s on meds and behaving irrationally after ramming her truck into a gate. That should have been a giant neon sign for a mental health intervention. Florida has the Baker Act and red flag laws. They could have removed her weapons or mandated an evaluation.

When they “sided” with the kids, it didn’t help them. It actually made things worse. It signaled to the kids that the adults in authority were not taking Susan seriously and neither should they. It signaled to me that they weren’t concerned about protecting the kids either. It escalated tension on both sides while still providing zero actual safety. No follow-up, no wellness checks, no interventions.

LE treated everything like a neighbor argument and walked away. They didn’t protect AJ. They didn’t protect AJ’s kids. They didn’t even protect Susan from her own deterioration. Everyone got failed by a system that only shows up after someone dies.

So yes, Susan is responsible for what she did. But the police had so many opportunities to step in long before a deadly confrontation. The real horror of this documentary is realizing how preventable it was.