Staten Islanders: Save Us From ‘Super Speeder Cop’

Residents of The Rock are fed up with public enemy #1.

NYPD Officer James Giovansanti’s pickup truck has been caught on camera 547 times in Staten Island since 2022 — including 187 camera-issued tickets in 2025 alone – and Staten Islanders think he should “swerve and protect” no more.

“It’s awful,’ said Emmitt Mendoza as he waited for the bus near the ferry terminal at St. George.

“I feel like, as a public servant, you have to lead by example. Over 100 speeding tickets [last year] … I think that’s really terrible.”

Working out of the 120th Precinct station house on Richmond Terrace, Giovansanti – or someone else driving his 4,800-pound RAM 1500 truck – frequently runs red lights or through school zones. He’s paid all of his $36,650.02 in tickets, records show.

Camera-issued tickets don’t count on a driver’s record, and as long as the vehicle owner continues to pay the $50 fines, no public authority intervenes.

A proposed bill in the state legislature would allow the city to order repeat recidivist speeders to install a device in their cars to prevent speeding. It’s similar to how those sentenced to driving while intoxicated must have an ignition interlock device installed in their vehicle.

If the so-called Stop Super Speeders Act had been in effect, Giovansanti would have been notified of the requirement to install a speed limiter on Aug. 7, 2022, only a few months after he bought the truck. But since then, he’s racked up hundreds of school zone speed camera tickets.

The 180 camera-issued speeding tickets alone ranked Giovansanti as the second-worst driver in the entire city, according to Transportation Alternatives’s analysis of 2025 school-zone camera tickets and Streetsblog’s reporting.

Many Staten Islanders said they supported the bill and wished it was already in place for reckless drivers like Giovansanti.

“He should be not driving anymore,” said Frank, a longtime Staten Islander, about Giovansanti. “He should be … a desk officer. Keep him away from patrol cars. Hopefully, he [won’t] injure anybody. His license should be revoked.”

Since Streetsblog published its bombshell investigation into Giovansanti last week, no elected official on the Island has spoken publicly, but two of the borough’s 14 elected officials did respond to Streetsblog’s requests for comment on Giovansanti’s reckless speeding in their neighborhood.

State Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton (D-North Shore) put out a statement describing speeding and reckless driving “serious public safety issues with often grave consequences.” She has signed onto the Stop Super Speeders bill.

Mayor Mamdani also called Giovansanti’s behavior “unacceptable,” but did not commit to disciplining New York’s Finest worst speeder, who works for the taxpayers even as he endangers them daily. Mamdani said City Hall would “have a conversation internally” on what following through on that looks like — an equivocation that reset Streetsblog’s Mamdani-O-Meter back to zero.

As a police officer, Giovansanti is theoretically subject to NYPD discipline for dangerous conduct out of uniform. Former cop and policing expert Michael Alcazar told Streetsblog that Giovansanti should be subject to “serious discipline,” which is something to which the mayor could have committed without having a “conversation.”

“I think (the police) should be held to a higher standard,” added Allen, a Staten Island resident. “I personally don’t trust police. Society doesn’t trust police with everything that has happened historically.”

The NYPD has still not commented on Giovansanti’s record of serving but not protecting. Giovansanti did not return multiple requests for comment from Streetsblog.