Fellsmere Police Chief Keith Touchberry graduated from the FBI National Command Course in Virginia on May 19.

Chief Touchberry completed the training while also serving as the president of the Florida Police Chiefs Association, the third largest chiefs association in the United States. He will remain in that FPCA position until August.

The FBI National Command Course was developed in 2020 to provide leadership training for police executives in departments with fewer than 50 sworn officers.

Participants must be the chief executive of a domestic law enforcement agency with fewer than 50 sworn personnel, and must be nominated to participate in the NCC.

According to the FBI, “the National Command Course was developed to fill a void in FBI strategic leadership training programs for policing executives. Law enforcement agencies with fewer than 50 sworn employees comprise over 80% of departments, yet leaders of these agencies often lack funding and/or manpower availability to send employees away for weeks at a time to attend nationally recognized executive leadership programs.”

Chief Touchberry announced last November that he was joining the 2024 race for Indian River County Sheriff. He began his law enforcement career in 1989, after serving six and a half years on active duty in the Marine Corps Infantry.

Chief Touchberry was hired by the Vero Beach Police Department in 1989. He left VBPD in 2013 to become the Chief of Police for the Fellsmere P.D.

Chief Touchberry has a Master of Science Degree in Criminal Justice from the University of Central Florida. In July he will teach a 24-hour Criminal Justice Leader Ethics course to law enforcement officers at Indian River State College. He is also adjunct faculty at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, and is the primary Ethics Instructor for that institution’s online Baccalaureate Criminal Justice degree program.

Article posted on Hometown News