Big Island police captain graduates from FBI National Academy

Hawaiʻi Island police are getting a captain back from Quantico with a nationally known leadership credential, and the test for residents will be what changes inside the department follow.

Hawaiʻi Police Department said Captain Levon Stevens graduated March 18, 2026, from the FBI National Academy in Virginia as part of the program’s 297th session. He was one of 253 law enforcement professionals in the class, a group the FBI describes as selected mid-level managers and executives who are nominated by agency heads for demonstrated leadership qualities.

The National Academy is not a ceremonial stop. The FBI says it is a 10-week professional course and the largest, most widely known law-enforcement executive training program. Graduates typically return to their agencies in executive-level positions, bringing back training and exposure to other departments that can shape planning, supervision and command decisions.

For Big Island residents, that is where the story matters. Hawaiʻi Island police operate across a county with long driving distances, rural districts, tourism-driven pressure points and a steady mix of domestic calls, traffic enforcement and community-policing demands. Leadership training will matter only if it shows up in the way the department manages personnel, responds to major incidents and coordinates with other agencies when cases or crises cross jurisdictional lines.

Stevens’s background makes the step especially relevant to department operations. A January 2025 local report described him as a 21-year veteran who had been assigned as Captain of Administration after previously serving as lieutenant of HPD’s CALEA accreditation section. That work ties him to the standards, compliance and internal systems side of policing, not just day-to-day patrol command.

HPD itself has stressed its institutional identity as a countywide agency built around service on Hawaiʻi Island. The department says it has had 12 police chiefs since its inception in July 1943, and it was first awarded CALEA accreditation on Nov. 17, 2012. Those details place Stevens’s academy graduation inside a department that has long tied credibility to professional standards and outside recognition.

The announcement was brief, but the message was clear: HPD wants the public to see that one of its captains has completed a nationally recognized leadership program and is returning with training that could shape how the department leads from Hilo to the island’s more remote corners.