Man Guilty in Attack on Black Lives Matter Protest With Claw and Car

A Queens man who menaced a peaceful group of Black Lives Matter protesters with a bladed glove and then drove his car at them faces a long prison term after being convicted on nine attempted murder counts and other charges, officials said on Monday.

The man, Frank Cavalluzzi, was found guilty after a two-week jury trial, Melinda Katz, the Queens district attorney, said in a statement.

Mr. Cavalluzzi, 57, of Flushing, is to be sentenced in October. He faces up to 25 years in prison on each of the attempted murder counts, officials said.

“A dangerous man is going to jail,” Ms. Katz said. “It’s a good day for New York and the First Amendment.”

Mr. Cavalluzzi’s lawyer, Michael D. Horn, attributed his client’s behavior during the June 2020 episode to mental illness and to what Mr. Horn described as Mr. Cavalluzzi’s uneasiness over the present state of New York City.

“The world will see this case” as “about politics,” Mr. Horn said. “But I see it as a single man, with mental health challenges, struggling to understand the evolving city where he lives.”

The confrontation for which Mr. Cavalluzzi was charged occurred as people took to the streets in New York and other U.S. cities to protest police abuses and systemic racism following the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020.

The demonstrations, largely peaceful, continued for weeks, and the number of drivers plowing into protesters multiplied. The New York Times reported in July 2020 that there had been 66 such attacks in the roughly six weeks after the killing of Mr. Floyd.

On June 2, 2020, a week after Mr. Floyd was killed, Mr. Cavalluzzi was driving his S.U.V. in the Queens neighborhood of Whitestone when he came upon protesters at an intersection where they had hung signs supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, court documents show.

Mr. Cavalluzzi stopped his vehicle across the street and began screaming profanities and racial slurs at them, court documents show. “You are in the wrong neighborhood,” was among the things he said, according to court documents.

Suddenly, prosecutors said, he made a U-turn and got out of the S.U.V. with a bizarre accouterment on his right arm: a leather glove with four serrated blades attached to it, resembling something from a horror movie. He chased several of the demonstrators while waving the bladed glove, prosecutors said.

He then got back in his vehicle and yelled, “I will kill you,” prosecutors said. At that point, he drove onto the sidewalk and toward the demonstrators, who scattered to avoid being hit.

Lorraine McShea, 22, was among those whom Mr. Cavalluzzi attacked in what she described in an interview as an “extremely scary” episode. She said she was pleased with the verdict.

Ms. McShea, who was at the protest with her brother and sister, said that she knew that some local people were opposed to the protesters, but she was surprised that the confrontation with Mr. Cavalluzzi had escalated so violently.

Most upsetting, she said, was not knowing whether her siblings were safe in the moments right after she darted away from Mr. Cavalluzzi’s oncoming vehicle.

“I didn’t know if they were dead or alive,” she said.

Ms. McShea’s brother, Donald, 19, also welcomed the verdict. The Whitestone protest was his first such demonstration, and he said he was “shocked” by the way it unfolded.

As for Mr. Cavalluzzi’s bladed glove, Mr. McShea said it “was really crazy.”

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” he said.

Susan C. Beachy contributed research.