A Brooklyn gun suspect, who took off on foot when detectives approached, has notified the NYPD he intends to sue the department for $200 million after an unmarked police vehicle chased him down and left him with a traumatic brain injury.
On May 26th, Giovannie Mayo, 29, was standing near the corner of Sutter and Ralph Avenues in the Brownsville neighborhood when police said he “displayed a firearm and pointed it at a female.” When Mayo ran, NYPD personnel pursued him in the vehicle which ultimately collided with the suspect, as it tried to cut him off in the driveway of a nearby storage facility. The collision left Mayo with severe trauma to the brain – rendering him unable to speak words or move some of his extremities without assistance.
“I want to know the reason for you all to run him over. What was the reason to chase him down?” said Monet Mayo, the injured suspect’s mother. “He didn’t deserve what they did to him.”
Hours after Mayo was taken to the hospital, John Chell, the NYPD Chief of Patrol, told news reporters that detectives “probably prevented a shooting” by chasing the suspect down.
But in a sit-down interview with the I-Team, the woman who was with Mayo on the street corner, Sabrina Robert, said she didn’t see a gun and never felt threatened.
“I say that it’s a lie because they’re trying to cover what they did to him, which was something very unwarranted,” Robert said. “Of course they’re going to try to put out a story that they were there at the right time and place, which was false. Very false.”
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A short clip of surveillance video, viewed by the I-Team, does appear to show Mayo tucking a handgun in his waistband at some point before police confront him. But the video does not show Mayo pointing the firearm at Robert or anyone else. A source with knowledge of the investigation shared the video with NBC New York on the condition it not be broadcast. The video clip did not show the initial police confrontation or the vehicle collision that injured Mayo after he ran away on foot.
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Nicholas Liakas, the attorney representing Mayo, said even if his client possessed a gun at some point prior to the chase, that firearm was no longer a threat, because Chief Chell told reporters the suspect “threw the firearm” before the police vehicle “tried to cut him off in the driveway.”
“If that is the case and they, as they said, saw him throw it into an alleyway, well we can all agree that [Mayo] wasn’t armed by the time they ran him over on the sidewalk,” Liakas said. “So what conceivable justification do they have for doing this to a young man?”
The I-Team requested police body cam, dash cam, and all other surveillance video of the incident but the NYPD has so far declined. A police spokesperson did not answer specific questions about the initial stop or the ensuing chase, or the collision, only stating the department would “review the lawsuit if and when we are served.”
Since Chell took over as Chief of Patrol, he has been quite public about the department’s intention to pursue suspects aggressively when they try to evade police.
“People thinking they can take off on us? Those days are over,” he told reporters at a news briefing in July of last year.
According to data published by the city, 911 calls labeled “broadcast chase/pursuit” increased by more than 600% between 2022 and 2023.
Although the NYPD initially filed criminal gun possession charges against Mayo, a spokesperson for the Brooklyn District Attorney said prosecutors made the decision to defer the case – in light of the 29-year-old’s medical condition.
“Due to the traumatic brain injury suffered by Mr. Mayo, we don’t intend to pursue criminal charges against him,” the spokesperson said, adding that the DA’s office is currently reviewing the entire incident.
Latrice Walker, the State Assembly Member who represents Brownsville, said she would like to see the results of that review.
“A vehicle versus a human being when there is no suggestion he was firing a weapon or about to fire a weapon at the police is overly aggressive,” Walker told the I-Team.
Family of Giovannie Mayo have also called on the Office of the New York State Attorney General to investigate the police chase, but a spokesperson for that office said state prosecutors only have jurisdiction to investigate deaths at the hands of police. Since Mayo survived, the Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigation does not have authority to look into the matter.
