The NYPD Saturday praised a Manhattan North honcho who “took responsibility” for his subordinates’ actions in the on-duty drinking scandal at the Electric Zoo music festival.

Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell and Chief James Essig tweeted a statement Saturday backing Deputy Chief Brian McGee, who oversaw the Manhattan North narcotics bureau where officers are under probe.

At least three detectives were alleged to have swiped liquor and downed it at the Labor Day weekend music festival on Randall’s Island.

Four plainclothes detectives worked all three days of the event and surveillance video shows them taking liquor bottles from a VIP tent and putting them in the trunk of their unmarked police car, sources said.

A lieutenant was also caught stopping by and drinking, sources said.

The situation unraveled when a concert worker asked who the detectives were and then called in uniformed officers, according to sources.

McGee was not at the festival, but he was among those transferred out of the precinct in the wake of the scandal. A total of 20 officers and supervisors were booted from the bureau, some placed on modified duty.

“As leaders there will always be people under your command who fall down,” Sewell and Essig said in the statement. “True leaders take responsibility and own the good and the bad; they want to be held accountable, often at great cost to themselves.”

It went on to say “These are the people we want: supervisors who willingly step forward and accept responsibility for the actions of others…Deputy Chief Brian McGee is such a leader.”

The NYPD Internal Affairs bureau and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office are investigating.