Surveillance video obtained exclusively by the NBC New York I-Team shows an unmarked NYPD car crashing into a gun suspect, just as the suspect appeared to raise his hands in surrender.
The collision took place in May 2024, after 29-year-old Giovannie Mayo sprinted down the sidewalk, attempting to elude police who said they suspected he had a firearm.
The chase came to an end when the police vehicle plowed into Mayo after making a sharp turn onto part of the sidewalk which doubles as a storage facility driveway.
Though the surveillance video seems to show Mayo on the sidewalk moving toward the storage facility, police bodycam video captured one officer declaring it was the pedestrian suspect who darted out in front of the unmarked vehicle.
“He ran right in front of the car,” the unnamed NYPD officer said.
Mayo, who suffered a traumatic brain injury and still has limited ability to verbalize, disputed that account through his lawyer, Nicholas Liakas.
“His hands were up. He had surrendered. He was clearly not armed at that point.” Liakas said. “There is no excuse for them, in a situation like that, to use their vehicle as a lethal weapon because that’s exactly what it was.”
Both the bodycam video and the surveillance video were obtained by Mayo’s legal team, which has filed notice of a forthcoming lawsuit against the NYPD.
The NYPD declined to comment on the newly obtained videos, telling the I-Team the incident is currently under internal review. The morning after the police pursuit, John Chell, then the NYPD Chief of Patrol, said Mayo had just pointed a firearm at a woman on the sidewalk before he took off on foot.
That woman has since told the I-Team she was never threatened with a firearm, and was simply talking with Mayo on the sidewalk. Investigators said they did locate a firearm tossed by Mayo as he ran.
Monet Mayo, the suspect’s mother, told the I-Team she believes the new video shows her son was not a threat, and was run down anyway.
“Even if a person has their hands up or is still running because they’re scared,” she said, “that doesn’t give you the right to do what you did. Run them over with your vehicle!”
The Office of the Brooklyn District Attorney says it does not intend to pursue criminal charges against Mayo or against the NYPD personnel who ran him over. A rep for the DA declined to answer questions about whether NYPD personnel made false statements or committed misconduct related to the incident.
The surveillance video of the collision and the bodycam video of the emergency response has become public just months after the new NYPD Police Commissioner, Jessica Tisch, implemented a policy restricting police chases in an effort to reduce unnecessary injuries to members of the public, to officers, and to suspects.
“The NYPD’s enforcement efforts must never put the public or the police at undue risk, and pursuits for violations and low-level crimes can be both potentially dangerous and unnecessary,” Tisch said in a January press release.
According to the new policy, vehicle chases are now “limited to only the most serious and violent crimes (felonies and violent misdemeanors).”
The I-Team inquired, but the NYPD declined to say whether Mayo’s alleged possession of a firearm would be a permissible reason to initiate a vehicle chase under the new departmental guidelines.
Scaling back the NYPD’s policy on vehicle pursuits was a sharp reversal from 2023, when Chell famously warned suspects who try to escape police would be chased down.
“People thinking they can take off on us – those days are over,” Chell said at the time.
Chell has since been promoted to Chief of the Department, the highest uniformed rank in the NYPD. When the more restrictive policy on police pursuits was announced in January, he changed his tone significantly.
“We need to pursue criminals when appropriate and stay our hand when the risks to the public and to our cops outweighs the benefits,” Chell said.
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