Staten Islanders Describe Alarming Encounters with Super-Speeding Cop James Giovansanti
James Giovansanti — the NYPD cop who accrued 547 speeding and red-light tickets since early 2022 — earned a reputation as a deadly driver long before Streetsblog revealed him as one of New York City’s worst speeders.
“I was like, holy shit, this truck could hit me at any second,” one Staten Islander said of their run-in with Giovansanti and his two-ton RAM 1500. The cop “nearly hit me when I had the right of way to cross,” said another.
Borough residents said they directly witnessed Giovansanti use his pickup truck to speed, tailgate, cut off other drivers, blow red lights and menace pedestrians. Their testimonies lend additional weight to Giovansanti’s titanic speeding record and intensify pressure on the NYPD to intervene before their own officer kills or injures someone.
Some of these New Yorkers described their run-ins with Giovansanti on social media. “Have you seen how he actually drives?” wrote @Mrbatz26 on the Staten Island subreddit. “Total jerkoff cutting people off left and right and tailgating like a mother fucker can’t forget that jerkoff face.”
“I’ve seen this guy haul ass on Richmond Terrace blowing lights,” another Reddit user, @ToughCelebration3705, added on the same thread.
“Haul ass” is a colorful idiom that means to move very quickly — that is, to break the speed limit. “Blowing lights” means disobeying red traffic lights, an act that immediately places nearby drivers and pedestrians in mortal danger.
Neither @Mrbatz26 nor @ToughCelebration3705 responded to multiple requests for comment. But Streetsblog found two other Staten Islanders who were willing to speak with us on the condition of anonymity.
“Nearly hit me”
One resident, whom we will call Sam, told Streetsblog that they encountered Giovansanti on two separate occasions earlier this year — the first time as a pedestrian in Port Richmond, and the second time as a driver in Westerleigh.
“In January or February, I was crossing on foot at Forest Avenue and Willowbrook Road and [Giovansanti] ignored the light and nearly hit me when I had the right of way to cross,” they told Streetsblog.
Three weeks later, Sam ran into Giovansanti again while driving near Forest and Jewett Avenues. “He nearly hit my car while I was also driving, and when I used the horn, he put his hands up like he was frustrated,” they said. “[Our] cars were parallel and he tried to pass when it’s a single lane in each direction. Something like half of his car was in the wrong lane.”
A second resident, whom we will call Alex, said they confronted Giovansanti over his driving behavior either last summer or the summer prior, after he nearly ran them over in St. George.
Alex told Streetsblog that they were trying to walk across Richmond Terrace at Hamilton Avenue — the same block as the 120th Precinct’s station house — when they witnessed Giovansanti perform a U-turn at high speed.
“I had just stepped into the crosswalk, and I saw this man in his very big white truck come very fast toward the light in the right lane,” they told Streetsblog. “And without hesitation, just barreling through the intersection, making a wide left U-turn from the right lane, out of nowhere, very, very fast — so much so that it startled me.”
Alex continued:
I jumped up and sort of darted myself forward because my physical instinct kicked in where I was like, holy shit, this truck could hit me at any second. And I got a good look at the truck as it whipped around me.
It shook me. And then later that day, I was in my car coming home from the grocery store and approaching the same intersection where I had crossed earlier that day. And I noticed [Giovansanti’s] truck parked on the side of the street, next to the stadium, with his windows down.
He was sitting in the truck. And I called out to him. I was pissed off, and I sort of hollered out to him: Hey, you nearly hit me earlier when you came through the intersection making that U-turn [and] basically four moving violations.
And he said, what?
I don’t know if [he] didn’t hear me or [he] didn’t understand or whatever, but I repeated it. I was like, you almost hit me earlier when you flew around this U-turn from the right lane there.
I honestly don’t remember what exactly he said to me, but he immediately dismissed me — you know, whatever, buzz off, get out of here. He made a face like he didn’t know what I was talking about.
I was so pissed off. The light was green, I wanted to get out of there. I am not a terribly confrontational person — but I can be, and I just felt like I wanted to say something. But I immediately remembered that, you know, given [his] judgment that I had seen earlier in the day with the driving and the recklessness, that this was not someone I wanted to get into an altercation with.
And so I kind of scared myself off. I probably shouldn’t have said anything — because what else would this person think to do? When I read your piece, I immediately recognized him and the truck and I remembered that day.
Alex lives in St. George. They said that drivers, many of whom are cops, routinely flout traffic laws in the vicinity of the NYPD station house on Richmond Terrace — but Giovansanti still stood out because he was driving at such a high speed.
“I watch people do insane things at this intersection all the time,” they said. “Just going through the red light, making U-turns. A lot of [cops] in the 120th precinct make the U-turn and go through red lights at this intersection.”
“So that is not unusual,” they continued. “I don’t think I would have reacted if I had seen that, because I see that all the time. It was the fact that [Giovansanti] did it, going as fast as he was, in the right lane, and made a U-turn from the right lane into the intersection to turn around toward the precinct.”
The NYPD’s moment of truth
The above accounts add to a growing body of evidence against Officer Giovansanti. They also demonstrate the NYPD’s institutional apathy toward reckless drivers among their ranks. It is increasingly difficult to believe that nobody within the police department was aware — or even suspected — that Giovansanti was endangering New Yorkers.
The department’s indifference is especially visible at the 120th Precinct, which is overseen by Inspector Eric Waldhelm. In March, Streetsblog documented how the vast majority of personal vehicles parked in and around the station house’s parking lot had received tickets for speeding or ignoring red lights.
Mayor Mamdani ran on a platform of street safety and police reform. Yet more than five months after his inauguration, NYPD officers continue to block sidewalks outside of station houses and refuse to ticket illegally parked cars, while their leaders at 1 Police Plaza yawn and prevaricate about the lethal behavior of officers like Giovansanti.
Giovansanti’s current status within the police department is unclear. An NYPD spokesperson previously told Streetsblog that his speeding tickets were unrelated to his duties as a cop, and more recently told the New York Times that his tickets were (in the paper’s words) “under internal review.”
At a press conference in April, Mamdani said Giovansanti’s record was “unacceptable” but has not commented on it since.
Spokespeople for Mamdani and the NYPD haven’t returned a single email about Giovansanti in the past three weeks. They didn’t answer questions for this story, either.
If you have any information about Giovansanti or the situation within the NYPD, please get in touch.
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