When I set foot inside a McDonald's in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson on Aug. 13, 2014, I had never been arrested and I'd never had a real complaint about police behavior. So when a St. Louis County officer forcefully arrested me, slammed my head against a door as he escorted me out of the restaurant (and sarcastically apologized for it), and ignored my repeated requests for his name or badge number, I honestly expected that he'd be held accountable for his actions.

My arrest , and that of The Washington Post's Wesley Lowery at the same time, dramatically increased attention on the flawed and unconstitutional tactics used by police in Ferguson following the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown. Then-Attorney General Eric Holder said journalists shouldn't be "harassed " while covering a story, and President Barack Obama said police "should not be bullying or arresting journalists ."

I wasn't naive. I knew police officers are rarely punished. And what happened to me hardly compared to the abuses I witnessed inflicted upon people who didn't have the benefit of a national media platform. But surely, I thought, the St. Louis County Police Department would take such high-profile misconduct seriously.

With that in mind, and at the suggestion of a St. Louis County Police Department spokesman, I filed a complaint with the department's internal affairs office about a week after my arrest.

Going to internal affairs, otherwise known as the Bureau of Professional Standards, seemed like the logical step. I was most interested in the name of the officer who arrested me and an apology, both of which I anticipated receiving within 90 days, the time frame in which St. Louis County aims to process citizen complaints.

Today, more than a year later, Wesley and I are facing charges . Like other Americans who file complaints with internal affairs departments, I found there is little transparency about what happens when a citizen files a complaint and lots of uncertainty about the outcome. There are no national or state standards governing the internal affairs process. Complaint procedures can seem -- and often explicitly are -- designed to protect cops rather than fairly adjudicate citizen complaints. Most people who go through the process don't get an apology, let alone accountability. And in some places -- including St. Louis County, where I was arrested -- citizens' faith in police is so damaged that many don't bother filing complaints in the first place.