A North Carolina teen humiliated three NYPD cops early Sunday by escaping a Manhattan DWI checkpoint in a police cruiser — despite having been tossed into the back seat with his hands cuffed behind his back, law enforcement sources said.
Police brass were weighing disciplinary action against the two cops whose marked patrol car was stolen and taken on a joyride, then ditched about 12 miles away in Yonkers, the sources said.
“Somebody’s getting suspended,” one high-ranking police source said.
But the cops claim they were ordered by a sergeant to leave Dekota Locklear, 18, alone in the car — which had no divider between the front and back — before hauling him off to the 33rd Precinct station house in Washington Heights.
“The sergeant wanted to get another arrest. He told them to put [Locklear] in the car,” said a source familiar with the incident.
“It was cold out and they left the engine on because they didn’t want him to freeze,” the source added. “It was all under the sergeant’s orders and there weren’t enough people to do a checkpoint.”
A law enforcement source said Sunday night that the sergeant and both cops were under investigation for the debacle.
The caper, which could have come straight out of “The Dukes of Hazzard,” began unfolding around 2 a.m. at 158th Street and the Henry Hudson Parkway.
Locklear, of Lumberton, NC, was stopped while driving a black 2008 Hyundai through the checkpoint and placed under arrest for having bloodshot eyes and failing a sobriety test, sources said.
While in the back seat of the police car, Locklear maneuvered his hands in front of his body, then allegedly slipped into the driver’s seat and took off.
“He climbed over the seat and took the vehicle,” court papers state.
The NYPD used GPS technology to find the cruiser abandoned near the Saw Mill River Parkway in Yonkers. One of its sides had been damaged in a collision, according to police sources.
The car was left in a parking space hidden by trees on Saw Mill River Road, a neighbor said.
Following its discovery, about 50 cops with search dogs and high-powered lights beat the bushes in the heavily wooded area, according to the neighbor.
Locklear — who has a lengthy rap sheet, including a kidnapping charge in North Carolina — was busted nearby around 4:10 a.m., according to police sources. He was charged with a slew of crimes, including grand larceny and reckless endangerment.
The teen was arraigned Sunday night and ordered held in lieu of $50,000 bond.
The suspect’s Facebook account features photos that show him flashing gang signs and holding firearms.
He was traveling with an unidentified 13-year-old boy at the time of his arrest, sources said. It was unclear what happened to the kid.
Additional reporting by C.J. Sullivan