It began with a call about youths throwing eggs on Halloween afternoon.

But when eggs hit an NYPD detective’s unmarked car, a series of events escalated from mischief into a racially charged riot in a neighborhood of Queens on Tuesday.

Police said several of the force’s cars responded to a call about eggs being thrown at someone’s property sometime after 4 p.m. in the vicinity of Crossbay Boulevard and West 10th Street in the Broad Channel section of Queens. Officers told a group of youths thought to have been responsible for the antics to disperse. No one was charged.

An unmarked police car remained at the scene. A plainclothes detective from the 100th Precinct, identified by sources as Marques Stewart, went into a local deli to buy a sandwich, observers said. At some point in the following minutes, eggs were thrown at the car, but that is where the narrative of some community members and police officials diverges.

Assistant Chief Michael Collins said the detective tried to question a woman, Patricia Rich, 43, about the eggs, but she acted suspiciously and said they came from a nearby roof. Chief Collins said that Mrs. Rich’s son, Patrick Rich, 17, then suddenly jumped onto the detective’s back and began yelling racist insults. When Mrs. Rich began struggling with the officers, her son ran into a crowd that had formed around the detective’s car, he said. A sergeant and police officer were also on the scene with the detective. Two other young men, Nicholas Stack, 16, and Robert Glade, 22, also quarreled with the officers, Chief Collins said.

As the crowd became increasingly menacing, Chief Collins said, the officers pulled out their batons and used them to take control of the situation.

A resident of the neighborhood and friend of the Rich family, John Walsh, 22, gave a different account. He said that the detective “started flipping out” when he saw the eggs hit his car. Mrs. Rich, who was drinking coffee on the corner, was the closest person to his car and so he began questioning her first, he said. When she refused to tell him who did it, he attacked her — and when Mr. Rich saw his mother being attacked, he jumped on the back of the detective, not knowing he was from the police department, Mr. Walsh said.

“He just kept grabbing her by the hair,” Mr. Walsh said of the detective. “They arrested everyone who was trying to help her.”

The crowd had grown to more than 100 people, some of whom were throwing eggs and yelling racist insults, Chief Collins and observers said. About five more radio patrol cars, including 20 officers and the commanding officer of the 100th precinct arrived, and the bedlam was calmed after 15 to 20 minutes, Chief Collins said.

As officers moved in to arrest Mr. Rich, he ran into the Jamaica Bay, where he remained waist-deep until police convinced him to surrender, Chief Collins said.

Police said that members of the crowd, including Mr. Rich, Mr. Stack, and Mr. Glade, were yelling, “kill the police,” and calling the detective, who is black, a racial epithet.

Four people, all of them white, were arrested and awaiting arraignment last night. One person, Sean O’Connor, 38, was issued a summons for disorderly conduct.

Mr. Rich, a student at Broad Channel High school, and Mr. Glade, who works at the deli near where the incident happened, were awaiting arraignment in Queens criminal court on charges of obstruction of government administration in the 2nd degree, resisting arrest, riot in the second degree, inciting to riot, unlawful assembly, and disorderly conduct, a spokeswoman for the Queens District Attorney, Richard Brown, said.

Mrs. Rich, a stay-at-home mother with three sons, and Nicholas Stack, who is also a student at Broad Channel High school, were awaiting arraignment on charges of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.

The defendants all face up to one year in jail and, or, a $1,000 fine, the spokeswoman said.

Mr. Rich and Mrs. Rich were taken to the hospital and released after they were arrested. Mrs. Rich had a sprained or broken thumb, and bruises, one of her sons, Jerry Rich, 21, said.

Four cameras captured what happened outside the deli, and some of the footage was blurry and not useable, Chief Collins said. But using the clear footage, he said “the video showed the police establish order with a disorderly crowd; it did not show misconduct on the part of police.”

The Internal Affairs Bureau of the police department has opened an investigation into Tuesday’s events, he said.

The detective at the center of the riot had a case lodged against him at the Civilian Complaint Review Board that was substantiated in 1997, in which he punched a youth with his pistol, knocking out several of his teeth, according to a source familiar with his CCRB history.

Mr. Rich’s brother John Rich was once stabbed by the man convicted of a hate crime in the Howard Beach attack last summer, Nicholas Minucci, according to news reports. John Rich survived the attack in 2002, but he died on Nov. 11, 2003, at age 15, after falling under an ‘A’ train in Queens on a night where he had been drinking, the reports said.