If you have never been in a car accident, mugged or watched someone die, recreating such events in your mind based on someone else’s words can be tricky, if not impossible. Things like the outer body, slow motion sensations, followed by shock, disbelief, anger or sorrow are never truly realized. The difference between the realms of spectator and participant is huge, though it isn’t difficult to leave one for the other.

I will be in a courtroom this weekend. No longer a spectator of police-community relations, I am now an active participant.

I was riding in a car with three friends, looking for a place to park in the confines of Manhattan’s 13th Precinct. I spotted a traffic agent sitting in his car. I got out to ask him what the parking situation was and if the area was "hot" for towing.

Nine out of 10 times, after identifying myself as a reporter, I can get that information with no problem and may curry some favor, even if the street is being targeted.

But on this tenth occasion, the agent would help begin my journey from spectator to unwilling player.

The agent, whom I will only describe as a person of color, escalated his side of our conversation to a discourteous tirade of expletives that triggered an equally negative response.

I stood up from my crouched position and started yelling. I was loud and intense, but I was also unaware that this spectator was now in the box seats leaning over the rail onto the field.

A man with a white shirt came up to me on my left. He had metallic epaulets on his shoulders, and the name ROCCO was engraved on to the plate on his breast pocket.

After identifying himself as a police officer ("Brownie" supervisors also wear white shirts), he asked me for my ID. He then gave me a light chuck with his hands, punching me back from the sidewalk.

In retrospect, I see now that I was being corralled.

He asked me what all the commotion was about and I told him that I was yelling because "I wouldn’t allow anyone to talk to me anyway they felt like, simply because they were wearing a uniform."

The next words out of the lieutenant’s mouth were to the officer accompanying him. He said "O.K., we’ll put him in the system and we’ll see how he feels about it then."

My crash through the looking glass of police-community relations was now in full swing.

He made his decision to arrest me without talking to the traffic agent, or even telling me to leave or be quiet.

Two of my friends – who happen to be white U.S. Marshals – were standing in about the same spot where I was when the words first started flying. They looked on in shock as I was told I was being arrested for disorderly conduct.

My first reaction was to pull my hands back from the cuffs, since I felt I was being arrested for no reason, but then I thought about the other bad things that could happen to me.

At this point the lieutenant still did not know who I was or what I do....something that he would have known had he spoken to the traffic agent.

I hadn’t told him because my experience has shown that sometimes that can make matters worse. But the look we gave each other was I’m sure familiar to both of us.

His was a look of arrogance and control – a "I’m going to show you who the boss is" glare that he seemed well practiced in.

Mine was equally as intense. It came from the rage of having my freedom and rights denied to me based on nothing other than what was going on inside this man’s head and maybe the color of my skin.

But in their zeal to show me who the boss was, the cops blew through protocols. I was never read my rights, and I was not searched for weapons. In fact, I was allowed to walk into my cell with my cell phone, my pager and my Visor (a Palm Pilot clone that’s about the size of a small automatic pistol).

After I was moved into a cell, I called the overnight assignment editor at my news desk, who called the deputy commissioner for the Public Information office, who called the precinct station.

Two minutes later, an officer came back for my phone and pager, still leaving me with my Visor in my upper pocket.

Five or 10 minutes after that, I was released.

The lieutenant, who probably now knew a little more about the man he ordered arrested, threatened me with arrest again with a final sneer if I failed to show up for the court appearance marked on the ticket.

But there was even more to come, with the story turning up four days later in the gossip columns, with police quotes that characterized me as a raving lunatic who was angry over a parking ticket, and beat the hood of my car with both hands. Remember, I wasn’t even driving.

Despite being exposed to the most humiliating of experiences, I was still more fortunate than most people who go through the same thing.

The incident floated to the upper echelons of power in the NYPD. I eventually spoke to the new Commissioner, Bernard Kerik, face to face about it, and to his deputy through a friend. I had witnesses who themselves are law enforcement officers and I know a fleet of high powered lawyers who are just itching to pursue this no matter where it ends up.

But absent all that, I was just a black man who was exercising my right to be pissed off about my treatment by a civil servant who was anything but civil.

For that I deserved to be subjected to 24, 36, or 48 hours in the central booking system? Was I loud? YES.

Was I angry? ABSOLUTELY!

Did I comply with the officer’s commands? Yes ... the only one he gave me, which was to present my ID.

Even If I were driving, and beat the hood of my car, does that rise to the level of arrest? I think you know the call on that one.

You may be wondering why you haven’t heard anything about this before now. Believe me, I could have started World War III over this, but I didn’t want it blown up into anything more than it was.

The lieutenant didn’t have the guts to sign the arrest ticket himself and the patrol officer, forced to do so, was clearly uncomfortable with what was going on.

You have heard me tell you before, that despite its problems, I feel the NYPD is made up mostly of cops who are decent, hard-working people, who keep us safe from the forces of evil. But like any living, breathing organism, it is not immune from infection or even disease.

I was exposed to what I believe is a big part of the small problem. Even my marshal friends made the observation that they were chilled by the fact that this was a supervisor who was supposed to be the voice of reason.

They felt he was giving the other cops in his control a lesson on how to deal with black people. You do not talk, you arrest ... an example that will, no doubt, be replicated in different scenarios, while poor leadership remains.

I didn’t launch a huge strike over this because part of me felt like "why should I be different than any other black man who this has happened to?" I also followed wise motherly advice, which says not to make major decisions in the heat of anger.

But my mom also reminded me that I am different, only because I have the ability not only to speak out but also to be heard. Ninfa Ramsay told me not to let the cops get a pass on this one – because if they did it to me, they’ll do it to anyone, if they think they can get away with it.

I’m on the field now ... I’m not watching, taking notes, warming the bench, or cheering one side or the other in this game.

Your turn to watch.

—The opinions of Gary Anthony Ramsay are his own and don’t necessarily reflect that of New York 1 News or Time Warner City Cable.