Scott Henson's commentary in the Austin American Statesman on Thursday calls for us to "Focus on improving lives, not making drug arrests, in East Austin." This is a well thought out and insightful look at the misplaced efforts of the Austin Police Department.

The author, who also writes a respected blog on the Texas criminal justice system and politics called Grits for Breakfast, is appealing to a local audience in a time of change and gentrification in East Austin. He assumes the reader knows where 12th and Chicon, on of the most notorious street corners in Austin, is.

He also enlightens us with some statistics. It looks like the APD's vast majority of arrests are going to...guess what? Possession of marijuana and drugs by young black men.

"The drug war has swallowed up modern American policing, courts, jails, probation rolls, and to a lesser extent than those other categories, prisons." This is obviously part of a much larger problem than just what is happening in East Austin (look to Michelle Alexander's book The New Jim Crow- Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness for a more in depth analysis).

But maybe we can understand a little more of America's misplaced aggression if we look at the microcosm of 78702. I lived in that zipcode for years, and had some pretty bad run-ins with the police there, and I'm white!

Once, I was coming home with some friends on East 7th and we were speeding. We got pulled over by the police- no big deal, that's fair right? Well, both my friends were black, and in no time, the police had handcuffed the friend who was driving and had him in the police car, ready to go to jail. He was not drunk at all, not uncooperative, but his English wasn't very good and he didn't understand that he had to sign the ticket. They called for backup, which came in the form of what I can only call a supreme jerk (well, the real word isn't fit to print here) named Sgt Vincent. He told me to shut up as I was trying to translate for my friend. He spoke so viciously that I actually thought he would hit me in the face.

Not one of the four policemen who came to East 7th that night spoke Spanish, which I found strange- it is no secret that many people who live in that neighborhood don't speak English.

I have never been treated so rudely for a routine traffic stop. It was surreal. So surreal that I got Sgt. Vincent's name, as I was going to complain to the APD about him. He was scary. "Do the Right Thing" scary.

White people!- we need to recognize that the way we are pulled over is not how it is for everyone. A friend of mine, young, black, with dreadlocks, had a girlfriend who lived near 16th and Chestnut. He was a teacher and a published author, and is going for his PhD now, but that didn't stop the police from pulling him over on average once every two weeks as he was driving to his girlfriend's house. They weren't always rude to him, but sometimes they were.

I can't help wondering what would have happened if I had been in the car with two white Norwegian friends who didn't understand English very well. Would the out of towners be handcuffed and threatened with arrest? Or would we all have had a nice laugh about their neat accents and our cultural differences?

When I followed up to register a complaint with the police department, there was no way to just say what happened. You had to file an official complaint, with your name and address, and without evidence, I was told there was nothing I could do. Just now I googled Sgt Vincent. He heads the Austin Police Association's board. I wonder how many other people have had run-is with him but are silenced by the lack of an effective complaint system.

It's hard to believe that policemen like Vincent and Leonardo Quintana exist only here in Austin. I wonder if, in examining the actions of police operating in East Austin, we can see a larger trend of racism and injustice in our nation's "peacekeeping" force.