By LEONARD GRAY

Managing Editor

HAHNVILLE — Chief Deputy Joseph Cardella of the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office recently attended the first FBI regional Command College, held Aug. 1-5 at the University of Mississippi.

The Command College welcomed representatives of 47 law enforcement agencies, and was made possible by a joint collaboration process from the FBI and the Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police.

Cardella, a former FBI agent who has been with the St. Charles Sheriff’s Office for 15 years, was invited to attend the conference.

“It was a great opportunity for law enforcement executives to take part in advanced training by the FBI,” Cardella said. “I was really pleased.”

MACP Director Ken Winter said, “It gave some small-town chiefs and departments that include five or six men the opportunity to received a level of training that they would not otherwise get. Throughout the week, we also gave them the opportunity to have an interchange of ideas and open up the lines of communication.

FBI Special Agent Steven Godfrey Sr. said the Command College is a form of training much like LEEDS, the Law Enforcement Executive Development Seminars, a two-week program for law enforcement executives that require them to travel to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., for the training.

Cardella added the classes ranged from trends in national crime, to advances in technology to budget management. “It was a smorgasbord of topics,” he said.

Those seminars only accommodate 30 students at three different times during the year. However, according to the FBI’s website, approximately 80 percent of the law enforcement agencies have fewer than 25 officers. Godfrey said the FBI was aware that they were leaving many of these agencies out of the mix.

Godfrey and the FBI plan on holding the one-week seminar annually on the Oxford campus.