Our Instructors

Rob Fanelli

Captain Rob Fanelli is currently an operations commander at the Gainesville Police Department. Prior to his promotion to captain he was the Criminal Investigations Division Commander. He has 18 years of law enforcement experience with a diverse career. He has supervised and worked in Robbery/Homicide, Sexual Assault, ICAC, Domestic Violence, and the Forensic Units. He has experience as an IACP and RTI consultant and is currently a Johns Hopkins Fellow in the School of Public Health with a focus on violence in the community. His goal is to improve the profession of Law Enforcement by challenging ideas and misconceptions within the profession, sharing ideas, encouraging communication across agencies and disciplines, and passing knowledge on to a new generation of law enforcement officers. He has a diverse career and has experience in a number of different areas including policy writing and compliance, investigations, street crime units, and administration. In 2006 he was awarded Officer of the Year. In 2007 he was transferred to administration as the Accreditation Manager. From 2007-2009 he wrote, or updated 153 department policies and subsequently the Gainesville Police Department was awarded 100% approval for accreditation through the Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation. From 2013-2017 he worked on a newly formed street crimes burglary unit. The unit was an extreme success and became a model for other agencies. In 2017 he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant. As a Lieutenant he was the Criminal Investigations Division Commander and oversaw Robbery/Homicide, Sexual Assault, Internet Crimes against Children, Forensic Crime Unit, Domestic Violence, and Property Crime. During his time as commander he was recognized for outstanding investigations by the City of Gainesville.

Captain Fanelli has a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Florida in Criminology. He was a board member of the Criminology and Law Honor Society, Golden Key Honor Society and graduated with honors. He went on to receive a Master’s in Business Administration from Saint Leo University and competed his dissertation on Effective Police Organizational Structure: Managerial Economics of a Police Department. He is a graduate of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Leadership Academy. He is currently an instructor with Advanced Police Concepts and at the Institute of Public Safety where he combines his knowledge of legal guidelines, department procedure, investigations, and patrol response to teach Trauma Informed Investigations, Field Training Officers Courses and Advanced Investigations. In 2018 he took lead in the IACP Project Enhancing Law Enforcement Response to Sexual Assault and Gender Based Violence. As a result of his participation in the project he now provides technical assistance through the IACP for Law Enforcement agencies around the nation. He is a Johns Hopkins School of Public Health fellow and is pursuing a Master’s In Public Health with a focus on violence in communities. He is currently serving on the board of directors for the Alachua County Rape Crisis Center and Horse Protection Association of Florida.