CLEVELAND, OH – Calvin D. Williams has done a lot of crying in public in his sworn and official capacity as Mayor Frank Jackson’s chief of police. The man’s in over his head as he faces a divorce from his wife and continued complaints about his running the police department like a criminal enterprise from President Joe Biden’s United States Department of Justice.
Biden is one of the sponsors of the 1994 Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Control Act that will have his constitutionally non-compliant policing in focus. His soon-to-be ex-wife asked for a restraining order against him.
I texted Frank to let him know that Williams’ wife had filed for a divorce last May and named him as a defendant. She filed on May 11, 2020. The filing had not yet made it to the docket of the Domestic Relations Court or to the Daily Legal News so I waited. I don’t get scooped by reporters in this town.
Loretta D. Williams sought a restraining order against Williams. A mutual one was granted to them both on the day of the filing.
That information was important to me as I had been tipped off around January 5, 2019 that police had responded to either a 9-1-1 call or alarm at the Williams’ home in Cleveland. He lives in Berea.
My source had shared with me that there had been a domestic dispute between the couple. I was told that Williams ordered police officers arriving at their home to turn-off their bodycams.
Cutting off the bodycam was the trigger for me to go public with the information I’d learned from my source. When I think of volatile domestic police relationships I think of Bernita White’s assassination at the Detroit Zoo; and her state police huband, Artis White, being the number one suspect.
White used the Federal Bureau of Investigations National Crime Information Center (NCIC) criminal records history database to track her address. Like Akron’s former police captain, Douglas Prade, White said it wasn’t him. Williams’ official conduct as a chief of police causes me not to trust him.
My source was in an area where police met afterwards and discussed what they’d separately put together at his home.
Not all the police officers spoke to Williams. Some remained near their cars. The perspective of the officer at the door is different than the one from the street being told “down the chain of command” to turn off their bodycams.
Williams took what I thought was the unusual step of holding a news conference to deny on January 7, 2019 what I’d written on my now-closed Facebook account on January 5, 2019.
“While it has been my policy to never respond to rumors, it has come to my attention that talk of a family disturbance or domestic violence incident occurred at my home. In addition, there have been rumors of my pending resignation. There has been no such incident at my home or anyplace else involving myself or a member of my family. There were, however, calls for service to my home due to activation of a private residential alarm. I take offense to these allegations and attacks on my character, especially in light of the fact that my family has experienced a terrible loss as the result of a domestic violence incident. I have no reason or intention to resign and will continue to serve the citizens of Cleveland as Chief of Police.”
In his statement Williams confirmed what I had shared on my Facebook page; which was that “there were, however, calls for service to my home due to activation of a private residential alarm.” His wife requested the divorce and restraining order. The docket shows a full-blown divorce with requests for discovery and interrogatories. The case filings paint a completely different “domestic” picture than the one Williams portrayed when he said “some” of what I’d published in January 2019 was not true.
What Williams should keep in mind is that I would have no knowledge of a resignation. What I repeated is the information shared with me by a source who later interacted with officers at his home. Williams referenced his late brother’s tragic homicide in his denial.
Williams’ brother, William D. Williams, was shot to death in his home by his ex-wife in February 2015. He was dating another woman in the home they once shared as a couple; but continued to live in together after their separation. Dana Johnson shot herself in front of Pennsylvania State Police after she was stopped for questioning in her estranged husband’s death.
What my sources shared the night of the alarm call was that a woman with whom Williams was having an affair dropped off their child. His wife’s divorce shows “no children” between them.
Williams has chosen to use convicted ex-Mayfield Heights Mayor Gregory Costabile as his attorney. Costabile was convicted in 2015 of failing to report over $115,000 in income between two developers. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail. The sentence was suspended. Instead of suspending his law license the Supreme Court of Ohio issued Costabile a “public reprimand.”
