They got served.
A black NYPD lieutenant is suing the US Tennis Association after he says a belligerent US Open security guard repeatedly called him the n-word — and the organization refused to fire her.
“They’re covering this incident up,” said the cop’s lawyer, Lambros Lambrou, who filed the $2 million suit in the Eastern District federal court Friday on behalf of Lt. Tarik Sheppard, who works in the department’s public-information office.
“They failed to give my client, who is a highly dedicated and respected police lieutenant, an incident report and an opportunity to make a statement. He was told they would fire [the guard], and they didn’t.”
Sheppard’s wife works for the USTA and, after the couple caught a game on the night of Sept. 7, he was driving her to another parking lot on the site so she could pick up her own car, but the guard refused to let them in, according to the complaint.
When he asked why, the guard — who is also black — loudly said, ” ‘Cause you are a n—–,’ ” the suit alleges.
“What did you just say to me?” he said he asked her — and she repeated the slur.
He quickly summoned a supervisor but says the woman was still unapologetic.
“Yes I called him a n—–, and I don’t care, the US Open is almost over, and I already got paid, so I don’t care if I get fired,” she told her supervisor, according to the suit.
The USTA’s head of security, a former NYPD cop named Michael Rodriguez, then arrived on the scene, and Sheppard claims the ex-officer assured him the woman would be fired immediately, the suit says.
“I got your back, I’ll get you what you need,” Sheppard says he was told by Rodriguez, who served 23 years on the force and was a supervisor in the Joint Terrorism Task Force, according to the suit.
But when the lieutenant contacted Rodriguez a week later, he says he was told the guard was still working there.
Weeks later, Sheppard says there’s been nothing but radio silence.
“This has gone from being an insensitive remark to clearly a cultural issue where they just don’t care,” he told The Post.
“If I was a celebrity, if I was Danny Glover, Jay-Z or Beyonce, and somebody did this to me at the US Open, I’m sure somebody from the USTA would’ve reached out to me.”
He’s suing both the USTA and Rodriguez for $2 million in damages for racial discrimination, arguing that the association “failed to train their employees in sensitivity training and … to root out employees that were racists and prone to bigotry and hatred.”
His wife still works for the tennis association.
“To this day, [Rodriguez] has seen my wife four or five times since then. She works there, and he acts like nothing happens. He hasn’t taken her statement,” Sheppard said.
A spokesman for the USTA and Rodriguez said Friday that the organization hadn’t seen the suit yet, but that it had “fully investigated” Sheppard’s complaint and had “believed the matter to be resolved” after an earlier phone discussion with the cop.
“We welcome the opportunity to sit down again with Lt. Sheppard to discuss any continuing concerns he may have,” spokesman Chris Widmaier said.