Police department — Sebastian, Florida

The Sebastian Police Department is the City of Sebastian's own police agency, providing patrol, dispatch, investigations and community programs from 1201 Main Street.

The agency is not a contract with the Indian River County Sheriff's Office. The City Charter settles the point in Section 3.06: The City of Sebastian shall maintain its own Police Department, with daily operations overseen by a chief of police who must be a certified police officer and who answers to the city manager. Headquarters is at 1201 Main Street, beside Sebastian City Hall.

The department's mission statement commits officers to courageously protect the rights of citizens while keeping positive relationships within the community through professional, compassionate service. In practice that covers patrol around the clock, 911 dispatch, traffic enforcement, marine patrol on Sebastian waters, follow-up investigations, school resource officers, code enforcement and a set of community programs run out of the Main Street building. Its units run from 911 dispatch and road patrol to a volunteer House Watch corps, and the House Watch forms, alarm permits and records requests all route to the same Main Street address.

Sebastian police are reached at 9-1-1 for emergencies and at 772-589-5233 for everything else, around the clock.

Emergencies in Sebastian go to 9-1-1. The non-emergency number is 772-589-5233, and the city FAQ states that the police department will respond 24 hours a day, seven days a week to requests for police assistance, with no appointment needed to make a report. The department's About Us page lists the direct extensions shown in the table above.

Email is a weekday channel only. The Sebastian department notes that its public email address is monitored Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., excluding holidays, and not around the clock, so anything urgent belongs on the phone line. The Records Section keeps the same 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekday hours at 1201 Main Street and closes on weekends and city holidays. Some services have moved elsewhere: the Sebastian Police Department no longer offers fingerprinting and refers residents to the Indian River County Sheriff's Office, which is also the agency the FAQ names for unlocking vehicles, a call Sebastian officers do not take because of the risk of damage.

The Sebastian Police Department is led by Interim Chief Timothy Wood and organized into Operations, Investigations and Support Services divisions.

Command changed in 2026. According to the department's Administrative page, Deputy Chief Timothy Wood was appointed as the Interim Chief of Police on June 12, 2026; he joined the Sebastian Police Department in 2010 after the Basic Recruit Academy at Indian River State College and had previously overseen the Professional Standards Bureau, Road Patrol, Investigations and Support Services. Three lieutenants lead the divisions beneath him.

The Operations Division, under Lieutenant Robert Vafiades, a Sebastian River High School graduate hired in 2004, is the core of the department. Road Patrol officers are divided into four shifts working 12-hour rotations, and the Communications Section is staffed around the clock by full-time 911 emergency dispatchers who take emergency and non-emergency calls and coordinate radio traffic. The division also oversees Police Cadets and the Special Operations Section, which consists of four officer-dog teams that are dual certified in patrol apprehension and narcotics detection, each dog completing more than 400 hours of basic training, plus a Marine Unit that patrols Sebastian waters with a focus on the safety of the boating public and the protection of waterfront property and the environment.

The Investigations Division, under Lieutenant Constantine Savvidis, handles follow-up investigations, an evidence and property unit that catalogs found and abandoned property, the department's Training Unit and the Crossing Guard Program at Sebastian schools. Its detectives also carry out pawn shop inspections and background investigations of new applicants. The Support Services Division, under Lieutenant Roy Cole, groups the Accreditation and Records Section, the Community Outreach Unit, the School Resource Unit, the Code Enforcement Unit and the Police Volunteer Unit.

The Sebastian Police Department registers home and business alarms, hires out extra-duty officers, runs House Watch and provides local records services.

Several services carry set fees. Under Chapter 39 of the Sebastian Code, the department's False Alarm Reduction Office requires every active alarm system, monitored or not, to be registered with the Sebastian Police Department, at a $10 registration fee. Renewal is automatic and free in any year without a false alarm; one false alarm brings a $10 renewal fee, a second a warning letter, and a third a $50 fine, rising to $100 for a fourth and $250 for each one after that.

Event organizers can hire officers. The Extra-Duty Police Officer Services schedule, booked through the Detail Kommander system with at least five days notice and payment in advance, is $60 per hour for each Police Officer and $70 per hour for each supervisor, with holiday rates of $65 and $75, a $3 vehicle fee and a three hour minimum per officer. Cancelling a detail with less than 24 hours notice still bills three hours per officer, according to the City of Sebastian fee schedule.

Other services are free. Under the House Watch Program, residents of the City who are away for an extended period of time can file a form so that police volunteers check doors, windows and vehicles at the property. The Records Section conducts local background checks, processes parking violation fees and answers records requests under Chapter 119 of the Florida Statutes. The Ride-A-Long program lets people considering a law enforcement career with the City of Sebastian ride with Road Patrol officers after submitting a civilian rider application to the department's recruitment team.

Community programs at the Sebastian Police Department, from Shop With A Cop to the Citizens Police Academy, are run by its COPE Unit.

Outreach is assigned to a named unit. The Community Oriented Policing Endeavor (COPE) Unit is the department's section for community policing, which Sebastian describes as an organization-wide philosophy built on partnerships, proactive problem solving and engagement; one of its tools is a Community Outreach Trailer taken to events around the city, and it can be reached at extension 8751. The unit also runs the Citizens Police Academy, a free 12 week course on how the department works.

The best known COPE event is Shop With A Cop, a yearly Christmas program in which each officer is assigned a child in grades K-8 with a gift card, and buses of children ride with a police escort down U.S. Highway 1 to Walmart. The program is funded by donations and fundraisers through the year, including the Sebastian Police Unity Cup golf tournament, whose 6th annual edition was set for October 17, 2026, two days after the department's Community Night Out on October 15, 2026, both listed on the department calendar.

Yes, the Sebastian Police Department has held state law enforcement accreditation since October 2, 2002, with Excelsior status since November 1, 2017.

The department's Accreditation page reports that it officially obtained accreditation status on October 2, 2002, from the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation (CFA), a voluntary process in which an independent body checks an agency against written standards. Sebastian was reaccredited on October 5, 2005, October 8, 2008, September 29, 2011 and October 8, 2014, then earned Excelsior status on November 1, 2017, renewed on October 15, 2020 and October 5, 2023. Under the CFA program, Sebastian must continually demonstrate compliance with the Commission's standards to keep that status, which is why reaccreditation has come on a roughly three year cycle since 2002. The Records Section in Support Services manages the accreditation files alongside its records work at 1201 Main Street.

Last verified: October 10, 2026, on the City of Sebastian website.