A white NYPD sergeant accused of calling a black officer a "boy" has been bounced from a Brooklyn precinct and placed on modified duty, police sources said.
Officer Roberto Stokes filed a complaint two weeks ago with the NYPD's Office of Equal Employment Opportunity, alleging that Sgt. Sean McLaine called him "boy" several times as McLaine tried to rush the cop out of the 79th Precinct stationhouse in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
"He told Stokes, 'Be a good boy - okay, boy?'"a source told the Daily News.
McLaine was apparently trying to nudge Stokes from the stationhouse to take prisoners to Central Booking, sources said.
"You can't talk to me that way," Stokes responded, according to a source.
McLaine has been transferred to an NYPD viper unit, which monitors surveillance cameras at city housing projects.
Andrew Quinn, McLaine's lawyer, said race was not an issue in the dispute.
He said McLaine admonished Stokes for using his name in a police report - even though the sergeant was not involved in a particular case.
"Why do you have to treat me like a child?" Stokes asked during the argument, according to Quinn. "The sergeant then said, 'Well then be a good little boy and do your prisoner transport.'"
Stokes' lawyer, Norman Siegel, said he was stunned.
"In the year 2011, somebody calling an African-American officer a boy is simply unacceptable," Siegel said. "This incident is part of a larger problem of race with that precinct."
The precinct's commanding officer, Deputy Inspector Peter Bartoszek, had no comment.
A source close to Bartoszek said racial tensions are not an issue at the 79th Precinct.
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