RAGING DRIVER GIVES UP
‘Disaster since he was born’
A raging white man with Wolverine-style blades caught on video threatening Black Lives Matter protesters on a Queens overpass, then trying to run them down with his SUV, surrendered to authorities Thursday, officials said.
Construction worker Frank Cavalluzzi, 54, of Queens, was arraigned Thursday night for attempted murder, attempted assault, reckless endangerment, endangering the welfare of a child and criminal possession of a weapon.
A Queens Criminal Court judge set Cavalluzzi’s bail at $100,000.
Cavalluzzi was caught on video speeding down the sidewalk in his SUV on Clintonville St. near the entrance ramp to the Cross-Island Parkway in Whitestone, sending the demonstrators scattering, authorities say.
He jumped out of his vehicle and threatened protesters while brandishing two long silver blades and two smaller knives rigged to his right hand in a manner reminiscent of the comic book character Wolverine’s retractable claws, said prosecutors.
Cavalluzzi surrendered to cops at the 109th Precinct stationhouse with an attorney at 9 a.m. Thursday.
Neighbors at Cavalluzzi’s former home on 14th Ave. in Whitestone described the union laborer as a human rage machine who would always argue with them over a shared driveway.
“He was out here with a machete, screaming he was going to kill the neighbors over the garage,” said one neighbor, who declined to give his name for fear of retribution. “He was a walking disaster since the day he was born.”
Neighbors said Cavalluzzi is rarely sober.
“He was always self-medicating,” one neighbors said. “He could not be straight at all.”
A few of his unhinged rants could be found on social media.
“Some scumbag robbed my van this weekend,” Cavalluzzi wrote on Facebook on
Monday. “I lost $3,000 worth of power tools. If I find the license plate of the getaway car I will burn their house to the ground.”
Another neighbor said Cavalluzzi, an avid Trump supporter on Facebook, was always raging against the government.
“He was against everything,” the neighbor said. “It was like he was some kind of crazy anarchist.”
In the video, recorded 3:45 p.m. Tuesday by a woman stopped at a red light, a wide-eyed, white-haired Cavalluzzi jumps out of his SUV with his knives out and charges at one demonstrator, shouting at the man before storming back to his parked vehicle and driving to the far end of the overpass.
He then hangs a quick U-turn before mounting the curb and taking aim at the demonstrators lined up along the sidewalk.
“You picked the wrong neighborhood, b——!” he barks at a woman on the street, extending a middle finger seconds before hitting the gas pedal.
The overpass exploded in horror as the protesters scrambled for safety, past signs hung on the overpass since the Minneapolis police killing of unarmed black man George Floyd last week.
Cavalluzzi sped off toward Francis Lewis Blvd. as some of the the shaken survivors cried in the aftermath of the attack. “He stepped on the gas pedal and went really fast, trying to run down anyone in his way,” stunned witness Arianna Agudo, 22, told the Daily News Wednesday. “I even cried after. I was in shock.”