A Filipino-American detective for New York City claimed a Westchester County police officer cut him off on the Bronx River Parkway and held him for two hours – including 45 minutes handcuffed in the patrol car’s back seat – because of his race.

Detective Elpidio DeLeon, who is part-Filipino and part-Mexican, said on Wednesday, July 26, that he may pursue a lawsuit against the county on allegations of false arrest and imprisonment, and violation of civil rights, according to the Westchester newspaper The Journal News.

The event drew four county police cars and a police helicopter, but ended without even a traffic summons when county police concluded that Detective Elpidio DeLeon was “suffering from emotional issues related to his sick mother,” and released him to a captain and lieutenant from his Washington Heights precinct.

DeLeon’s description of his April 7 arrest differs substantially from the one offered by spokesmen for county police and described in the police report, which says DeLeon was not even arrested.

Whichever account is closer to the truth, the event represents a significant departure from the unofficial police tradition of “professional courtesy” – allowing off-duty officers stopped for traffic infractions to continue on with a wink and a wave.

Sgt. Leonard G. Spano, one of the county officers who converged on the parkway’s shoulder in Yonkers after DeLeon was stopped, said DeLeon refused to pull over for almost a mile as Officer Daniel Carfi tried to stop him for allegedly speeding, forcing Carfi to cut him off.

Spano said DeLeon refused to show his New York Police Department badge after saying he was a city officer, and he rejected DeLeon’s allegation that he was stopped only because of his race. Carfi and the other four county officers involved in the incident are white.

“That’s a ridiculous claim,” said Spano, who heads the county Police Officers Benevolent Association. “We don’t engage in racial profiling in Westchester. I don’t know what happened when they placed the handcuffs on him, but from the moment I arrived, he was treated professionally. We treated him as one police officer would treat another.”

Deputy County Police Commissioner Demosthenes Long said Carfi handcuffed DeLeon because “he was pretty emotional and had to be restrained for officer safety reasons.”

DeLeon said he was driving to Sam’s Club in Elmsford with his girlfriend after visiting his mother at Albert Einstein Medical Center in the Bronx. He said Carfi did not turn on his siren or flash his lights in the traffic stop, and said he continued driving because he was unable to find a shoulder on the parkway.

He said he produced his NYPD shield immediately, but stopped cooperating — refusing to produce his license and registration — when he said Carfi became vulgar and abusive.

“The next thing you know, there’s a helicopter overhead,” DeLeon said. “(Carfi) said, ‘You see that up there? That’s for you.’”

DeLeon said the county police ordered him to remove his gun from his holster himself in alleged violation of procedure, slammed his head against the hood of his Acura and drew blood from his wrists by ratcheting down on the handcuffs. He said he was held for two hours, until his captain and lieutenant arrived from Manhattan.

“They gave my supervisor my gun and my shield and they drove off like nothing happened,” DeLeon said.

“Did I get arrested because I was speeding?” he said. “Did I get arrested because I refused to give my license and registration until their supervisor got there? Because I refused to give them my gun? Or because I’m half Filipino, half Latino and I happen to look Mexican or Ecuadorian?”

Asked why he believed the incident was racially motivated, DeLeon said, “It’s things that got done and things that got said that make this a racial issue, which I’m not going to go into.”

DeLeon’s lawyer, Rocco Avallone, has filed a notice of claim, alerting the county that his client reserves the right to file a lawsuit.

DeLeon, 50, has been a New York City police officer for 21 years. Three years ago, he fatally shot a teenager who was holding up a partner who was posing as a deliveryman in a West Harlem apartment building that had suffered from a string of robberies.

Published reports a day or two after the shooting said investigators believed DeLeon acted properly.