CLEVELAND, OH – Zack Reed wanted to elevate Calvin Williams from chief of police to director of public safety had he defeated Mayor Frank Jackson in November 2017. Today Reed wants Williams to either resign on his own or be fired by Jackson.
“All he’s doing is collecting a pay check,” Reed told EJBNEWS when he called after reading the story I’d written about the $184,000 a year cop boss’ domestic disputes. The exclusive story with pictures of Williams “cop baby mama” came after EJBNEWS revealed Williams’ wife had filed for divorce.
Reed said he’s campaigning for Cleveland mayor again and sees no improvement in the mitigation of violence in the city. 1o homicides for the month of January 2021. 177 homicides in 2020. Over 60 percent unsolved and far below the national average.
Reed now sees Williams as incompetent as he sees staffing in the homicide unit with only 24 police officers covering two shifts. The late Cleveland Mayor George Voinovich ended the 3rd shift for the detective bureaus after Governor Richard Celeste made good on his commitment to let police unions negotiate wages and benefits in 1983. Cleveland taxpayers couldn’t afford the cost of negotiated wages and benefits so the cuts in services began and never stopped.
Thanks to collective bargaining Cleveland police captains are set to earn $101,000 each before overtime in 2021. Public employee unions in Ohio are out-of-control; and so is the widespread theft of “unwatched” public funds during the cold and flu season pandemic mayors like Jackson are using to circumvent and obstruct the enforcement of constitutions and laws.
Reed told EJBNEWS he observed Councilman Blaine Griffin’s “Zoom’d” safety committee hearing and was completely unsatisfied with Williams’ smug response to the violence police directed at protestors after George Floyd’s death. Reed was at the protest and saw first hand how police instigated violence with tear gas and rubber bullets.
He said Williams’ was lying with claims that protestors had tried to enter the Justice Center. He said police provoked the destruction of downtown Cleveland.
“Either they won’t let him do what he knows or he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s managing the department just like McGrath [Michael]. All these specialized units are not working,” Reed said. “No one’s being held accountable.”
Reed said Williams and Jackson have also been weak in sending the message that Timothy Loehman, Tamir Rice’s killer, is not going to work, again, as a Cleveland police officer. He praised former Cleveland Mayor Michael White for being louder about his thoughts on cops like Loehman.
Reed placed second behind Jackson in the 2017 primary election.