Brand new Cleveland fire chief accused of inspecting nose hairs & assaulting suborbinate
A few hours after being sworn in as Cleveland’s interim fire chief, Angelo Cavillo was greeted with this headline on the Cleveland.com website: “New Cleveland Fire Chief Angelo Calvillo described by subordinates as power hungry, demeaning to rank and file.”
Cleveland has had a number of recent fire chiefs who have had reputation management issued to deal with (details here).
According to the article by Leslie Atassi, Chief Calvillo, who was promoted from battalion chief, was ordered earlier this year to meet with a counselor from a company that deals with anger management and workplace communication skills for the city’s employees. This followed what was described as a physical altercation a year ago with Captain Gerald Gonsor over grooming, specifically the captain’s failure to shave.
In documents reporter Atassi discovered, Captain Gonsor says the focus on grooming is a consistent issue with the new chief — and there’s more:
Gonsor said that Calvillo does not allow subordinates to speak directly to him during work hours, forcing officers to route all communications through the chain of command.
He tyrannizes firefighters by nitpicking their appearance, writing them up for “inadvertent nose hairs,” wearing the wrong style of fire department uniform or putting on a baseball cap to combat sun glare while driving, Gonsor wrote.
