Joanna,I think your ex-husband was very lucky if he behaved that way towards the police.
My comments here are in no way meant to distract from the racial oppression angle of this story.
However, I have found in my experience, being a white guy myself, that police officers, (who btw generally have authoritarian personalities), get all bent out of shape and will escalate a situation if the persons they are interacting with are not completely deferential and kiss their ass. In one incident the police responded to a domestic noise call at my home. Upon their arrival they pushed their way into the house, invited by no one. Our tempers had already cooled. The police had been there for several minutes and confirmed from both me and my spouse that no physical violence occurred.
Then, in the course of a discussion with an officer I raised my voice in frustration with the officer's unsolicited marriage counseling services, asking them to leave already. I was then shoved up against a wall and threatened with arrest in my own home. This for barely raising my voice in a discussion with the police officer. Far from hysterical screaming or anything like that. As if raising ones' voice is a crime!
I used to work a little bit with CopWatch in Denver. Without a doubt communities of color receive a disproportionate amount of abuse from the cops. But make no mistake, in our collection of police abuse reports, there were plenty of white working class victims of police harassment and abuse.
White skin can certainly help in interactions with the police, but it does NOT confer immunity from police abuse.
Cops can be real assholes sometimes, even to white folks. -- http://left-wingwacko.blogspot.com/