James Giovansanti, Staten Island’s Super-Speeding Cop, Reveals The NYPD’s Inner Conflict Over Rogue Officers

How do you solve a problem like James Giovansanti?

Cops, former cops, officials at the highest levels of NYPD brass, and the mayor himself, are trying to figure out what should happen to the Staten Island cop who piled up 547 speeding and red-light tickets in four years — with some of New York’s Finest forgiving him his reckless transgressions, some admitting that his conduct reflects badly on the force, and his two most important critics still mulling it over.

The public disagreement mirrors the stark choice faced by Mayor Mamdani and his Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch: admitting Giovansanti endangered others and punishing him accordingly — or simply admitting that a cop can do whatever he wants when he’s off-duty as long as it’s not a crime.

“[His speeding] is ridiculous. … Who allowed this?” Sal Greco, a former cop and podcast host, told Streetsblog. In a TikTok video, Greco added: “It’s wrong that a police officer has the attitude of ‘Who cares’ because it’s not a good look of the police department. … A lot of people [speed], but if you’re a police officer, it’s a really shady thing to do.”

An NYPD spokesperson told Streetsblog that it would not discipline Giovansanti because his speeding tickets were “not related to his job or duties in the department” — even though the department routinely punishes cops for off-duty behavior.

Other ex-cops disagreed with the department’s assessment.

“This one really bothers me,” said retired cop Jay Gatling. “The department needs to step up and act. Higher standards aren’t optional for those who wear the shield.”

Retired detective (and legendary whistleblower) Frank Serpico even got into fray.

“This is [un-fucking-believable],” Serpico added. “I thought it was fake news.”

Michael Alcazar, who retired from the NYPD in 2019 and now teaches criminal justice at John Jay College, said that “a case like this should prompt serious internal discipline not because of one violation, but because of what the overall pattern suggests about the officer’s accountability and judgment.”

The debate is coming against the backdrop of high-level negotiations in Albany over a state bill that would require recidivist speeders to install a device inside their cars to prevent speeding. Just such a device would have blocked Giovansanti’s speeding four years ago — had the so-called “Stop Super Speeders” law, which Mayor Mamdani supports, been in effect.

Retired cops come to the defense

Still, several other retired NYPD cops formulated a convoluted and contradictory defense that echoed their former employer’s official response: Giovansanti’s violations are not worth covering, and we don’t know if he was the one driving the truck, so it violates his due-process rights to assume he was driving.

This was the main argument of John Macari, a former cop who now hosts the unofficial NYPD podcast, “New York’s Finest: Retired and Unfiltered,” which featured Streetsblog on Friday. “Having 547 speed or red light camera tickets does not mean you are ‘recklessly driving’ or a danger to the public,” he wrote on X. “If a cop has 5,444 camera tickets issued to his registered vehicle … as long as he or she is paying the fines, there is no legal or administrative issue.

“Just because your registered vehicle was issued an inordinate amount of summons does not mean the registered owner was ever behind the wheel of that vehicle,” he continued. “Cops are entitled to due process and constitutional protections just like every other American.” (Traffic cameras do not detect the identity of a vehicle’s driver, but tickets go to the vehicle’s owner on the presumption that he was driving or allowed his vehicle to be driven in an unsafe manner; and regarding due process, Streetsblog provided both Giovansanti and the NYPD multiple opportunities to clarify whether other people had access to the truck. Neither did so. It’s unlikely the NYPD would withhold information that could exonerate one of its own cops?)

It’s a Chell game

One of the highest-ranking former officials, John Chell, is the human embodiment of the conflict within the NYPD writ large.

In a conversation with Streetsblog, Chell, who retired in 2024 after serving as Chief of Department, provided a rare window into the pendulum of accountability swinging inside the minds of NYPD top officials.

First, Chell wondered if Giovansanti was, in fact, a “reckless” driver, given that school zone speed cameras are only triggered if a driver exceeds the posted speed limit by more than 10 miles per hour.

“If you’re doing 11 miles over the speed limit, to the tune of 31 in a 20, or a 36 in a 25, is that truly reckless?” Chell asked rhetorically.

And the former third-ranking officer in the department argued that Giovansanti’s speeding tickets should not concern the NYPD: “If he’s getting caught in a violation, and he’s paying his fines, he’s not in arrears — that’s a personal matter. It’s his private time.”

But Chell admitted Giovansanti needs a talking-to.

“If I’m his commanding officer, I might just have a conversation with him,” Chell said. “Because he’s not breaking any NYPD policy. It’s just like if he was parking illegally every night at a fire hydrant. It’s wrong, but if he’s paying his summonses, what are you gonna do?”

Then, most surprisingly, Chell endorsed hiking fines for speeding by 100 or 150 percent.

“Jack up that speed camera [fine] and make it higher. You make it higher — I’ll be triple-checking. I don’t want to pay $100, $200. I would absolutely be in favor of that.”

What about current cops?

The NYPD makes it difficult for reporters to interview officers on active duty. The department instructs cops to refer all reporters’ questions to the deputy commissioner of public information, whose staff has no obligation to actually answer those questions.

Still, there are clues that suggest rank-and-file NYPD officers are as divided as their retired counterparts. Macari’s aforementioned podcast features an unmoderated live chat where listeners react to the show in real-time. It is reasonable to assume that some of these listeners currently work for the NYPD.

Take these with a grain of salt, but here are a few representative live-chat comments from Friday’s episode:

@Jason-g6q: Liberal nonsense garbage

@victor7578: speeding is dangerous to the public – it’s clear this officer doesn’t care

@Theblackrain32: 36 mph is “speeding” in NYC!! Ridiculous!!

@myvisualZone: Streetsblog and TransAlt sucks, but the fact people don’t understand why this is a big story is perplexing. We’re talking about law enforcement flagrantly violating the law 300x. And that’s only the ones he got caught doing….

@kennethflores-hv7uf: Sensational journalism at best

@E-NYC-26: we cannot ignore the fact that this guy has managed to not get a boot in his car for all this time. How can this [be] possible?

@labro8964: he cannot drive within the legal limits, he needs to find another line of work

So what is to be done?

Giovansanti’s case raises a fundamental question: Can the NYPD intervene when a cop exhibits behavior that threatens human life, but is not a crime but a violation?

Sarena Townsend, a former deputy commissioner at the New York City Department of Corrections, told Streetsblog that the NYPD can do something — but that decision is entirely discretionary, and in Giovansanti’s case would almost certainly involve Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

“Whatever punishment he could potentially face [will vary] based on the appetite of the department and the commissioner,” she said. “The number of violations is very, very concerning. If the department feels … he’s causing the department to look bad, or this is just not the type of behavior that they would like to condone, there’s a catch-all charge that they could charge him with, which is ‘conduct unbecoming’ [of an officer].”

The “conduct unbecoming” charge is sufficiently broad that Giovansanti could face modified duty, a temporary suspension, or even termination, Townsend said.

She added that the media coverage of Giovansanti’s speeding tickets would likely affect the internal deliberations around a potential intervention. The commissioner typically defers to the judgment of each sub-department’s “departmental advocate,” a position that handles disciplinary investigations. But “in a case where it blew up in the media, the commissioner will usually make a final determination — and if she disagrees with the departmental advocate, then she will override their decision.”

Commissioner Tisch serves at the pleasure of Mayor Mamdani, so her decisions carry the weight of his approval. On Friday, Mamdani told reporters that Giovansanti’s speeding record was “unacceptable.” but declined to specify what he would do about it. Instead, he said he’s having “conversations” about the reckless cop, though he didn’t say with whom.

Townsend doesn’t know if Mamdani is going to end up getting involved or simply deferring to the police to police themselves.

“Do I think he’s going to weigh in on this one in particular?” Townsend asked. “Probably not. It seems like it would be in Tisch’s wheelhouse to figure this out herself. Unless he really wants to make a strong statement against this kind of behavior — which, you know what? He might. He very well might.”