Denver Police Chief Robert White dressed down a cop at Denver International Airport on Sunday night after the officer told White’s wife she couldn’t wait at the curb as he headed out of the terminal.

White had arrived in Denver from Louisville, Ky., where he was giving a deposition in a case. He is the former Louisville police chief.

White’s wife, Valerie, had circled the airport three times with out stopping.

“I told her the plane was landing and we don’t want any special attention,” he said, so she kept circling “like any other citizen would.”

The chief was hurrying to get to a vigil for victims of the Aurora theater rampage and called his wife again when he was almost out of the terminal.

“I was trying to get to the vigil,” he said. “I call her when I am less than 30 yards away.”

He told her to explain to the officer that she was waiting for him and inform him that he would be out in moments. The officer told her to go around again.

“As I am walking out, she is pulling off again. I said ‘Valerie, what are you doing?’ ” he said.

White bawled-out the cop, who was working off-duty handling traffic at the airport, because police should be willing to let someone wait in the passenger pickup zone for a few seconds if the traveler will be there in moments, he said.

“That is ridiculous,” White said. “I wouldn’t have treated a regular citizen like that. You can’t wait 10 seconds to see if he is coming out of the door? My point being it had nothing to do with me being the police chief.”

He approached two officers thinking one of them had told her to leave, but neither had done so.

When he found the cop who ordered her away, White told him it was absurd to make someone leave when the person they were waiting for was about to come out, he said.

“He came up with some explanation, I said this is ridiculous,” and walked away.

Nick Rodgers, president of the police union, said the officer did not resent the incident. “The officer wanted for me to convey for him that this situation for him is a non-event.”