UPDATE: New Windsor Police will open an investigation into conduct by one of its officers, a department official said Tuesday morning. Further information will be sent to local media outlets later today, he added.

Newburgh resident James Kennedy was driving his boyfriend to work on Friday morning when he noticed a New Windsor police cruiser behind him. He pulled into a parking lot and back onto the road to steer clear of the cruiser.

"I was trying to avoid him," Kennedy, 27, said during an interview on Monday. "I was trying to get out of his way."

An officer caught up with Kennedy after he was back on the road and followed him to a gas station at Route 94 and 9W. Kennedy said he began walking into the gas station's convenience store when the officer told him to get back in his car.

Once back in the car, Kennedy began recording video on his cell phone, which was placed on the dashboard.

Warning: The video below contains strong language.

"I did nothing illegal there by turning with my signal on," Kennedy is heard saying in the video.

"I know," the officer, who was standing just off-camera, replied. "It looked suspicious. That's all."

"Can I ask you, 'Why does it look suspicious?' " Kennedy inquired.

The officer replied: "Well, when you see a car come out of Newburgh ..."

"Out of Newburgh, or out of anywhere?" Kennedy asked.

"Out of Newburgh," the officer confirmed. "We sit there for a reason. You know what I'm saying?"

Kennedy is licensed, his registration documents were current, his windows are not tinted, and all the lights on his silver Toyota Corolla were working. The officer did not point out any traffic violations, and Kennedy did not receive a citation.

Kennedy said he was also taken aback when the officer said that if Kennedy had not stopped at the gas station, he would have followed Kennedy, but not pulled him over.

"If you kept going, all I was going to do was just drive and see what's going on," the officer said.

"I don't want to be driving around nervous," Kennedy replied.

Kennedy went to the New Windsor Police headquarters with activist and Newburgh Councilman-elect Omari Shakur to get paperwork to file an official complaint and to show the video to a lieutenant.

During the conversation in an interview room connected to the lobby, the lieutenant told Kennedy and Shakur what typically leads to a traffic stop in New Windsor.

"There are two reasons for a stop," he said. "One is for a traffic violation and the other is for suspicious activity."

"But suspicion isn't a crime, though," Kennedy told the lieutenant.

The lieutenant replied: "It's still our job to question suspicious activity."

Careful with his words, Kennedy told Spectrum News he sees Friday's interaction as "profiling, discrimination and borderline racist," adding that he doubts whether a traffic stop would have happened if it were his boyfriend's white mother driving the car, "because they [New Windsor Police] know what they're looking for."

"People say that if you have nothing to hide or have done nothing wrong, you shouldn't be scared, but that's not the case," Kennedy said. "I did nothing wrong."

Shakur said at least four other Newburgh residents have come to him recently with stories similar to Kennedy's. This one is different, though.

"This is the first time it's been recorded, and this officer said it himself, that they sit here stopping people from the City of Newburgh, so now it's been confirmed," Shakur said.

New Windsor Deputy Police Chief Michael Farbent told Spectrum News it is not the department's policy to screen cars as they come into town from Newburgh.

Farbent said he cannot comment further until he sees the video and an official complaint is filed.