Parkland Captain Craig Calavetta.
By Kevin Deutsch
Captain Craig Calavetta, the Broward Sheriff’s Office official selected as BSO Parkland District Chief last August, was fired by the agency Monday.
“He was terminated today,” Veda Coleman-Wright, Director of BSO’s Public Information Office, told Parkland Talk in an email.
The firing of Calavetta, a Parkland resident, comes more than 30 years into his law enforcement career. He began as a Parkland Public Safety Officer in 1991 and, in 2021, rose to the rank of BSO Parkland Division Captain. That same year, the city selected him as district chief, Parkland’s top law enforcement official.
His firing comes 11 days after a high-profile weapons incident at Somerset Parkland Academy involving the school’s principal.
Two guns belonging to Principal Geyler Castro were brought into the school inside a box on June 2, according to the school’s governing board.
The box had been removed from the trunk of Castro’s car at the school, located at 8401 N. University Dr., and was not intended to be brought inside the K-8 charter facility, according to a statement issued by the board.
After the incident, BSO shared a written statement with Parkland Talk stating that a BSO school resource deputy at Somerset Parkland Academy “was notified of two firearms found on campus.”
“The firearms were secured and turned over to BSO detectives for safe keeping,” the statement said. “The preliminary investigation revealed the firearms belong to the principal. The incident remains under investigation.”
According to state law, it is a felony to bring a firearm into a school in Florida.
In a summary of the weapons incident, included in BSO’s weekly Parkland crime blotter, the event was categorized as a case of “found property.”
All details of the narrative summary were redacted, with BSO citing the involvement of an “abuse victim” as the legal reason for the redaction. Further explanation was not provided in the document.
BSO Major Aimee Russo is serving as the interim district chief in Parkland in the wake of Calavetta’s removal.
“We will begin the process of selecting a new Captain in the near future,” Parkland Mayor Rich Walker said last week.
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Author Profile
- Kevin Deutsch is an award-winning crime journalist and author. A graduate of Florida International University, Kevin has worked on staff at The Miami Herald, New York Daily News, and The Palm Beach Post.
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