In 2016, Ohio amateur comedian Anthony Novak made a Facebook page spoofing the police department in his hometown of Parma. The page was up for just 24 hours, but that was long enough to test the Parma Police. Officers responded by ramming into Novak's home with guns drawn, jailing him and charging him with a felony that carried up to 18 months in prison.

Novak's lawsuit against the officers drew an unlikely ally in The Onion, America's best-known satirical newspaper, and carried a pointed question all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court: when officials violate your rights, can you hold them to account?

Director Will Thwaites, a Parma native, widens the frame with the story of Omar Arrington-Bey, an African-American man who grew up fifteen miles from Novak and whose encounter with the same legal doctrine carries far graver stakes. This slyly alarming film uncovers a trap door on civil liberties, one that can leave the public without recourse when authority overreaches.