After this incident Boston Police Department took action

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The Boston police sergeant who held a toy gun in an Attleboro citizen-cameraman’s face apologized to him yesterday in a meeting between cops and civil rights leaders in Roxbury.

Sgt. Henry Joseph Staines and the 61-year-old man, who asked to be identified only as “Brother Lawrence,” shook hands during the closed-door meeting at NAACP headquarters. Afterward, Staines hugged him.

“It’s a teachable moment for the Boston Police Department,” said Superintendent-in-Chief William Gross. “We’ll move forward in letting our officers know — and the public know — that it is your constitutional right to film officers if you deem to do so. We just ask that you be respectful and remain at a respectful distance so as not to interfere with our lawful duties.”

The man filmed Staines with a camera phone on April 24 in Roxbury as police investigated a report of a teenager with a gun, which turned out to be a plastic replica, officials said.

“You want to jump in the cruiser with us?” Staines can be heard on the video saying to the man. “I’m not giving you my permission to film me … Where do you live?”

In the video, the sergeant walks away and returns with what appears to be a real gun, which he holds up to the camera.

“See that?” he says. “See that? That’s why we’re here.”

“Brother Lawrence requested one thing: that he receive an apology,” Darnell Williams, president and CEO of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, said after yesterday’s meeting. “He received a sincere apology, and there was a sincere acceptance.”