David Brannon

A Florida native born and raised in Cocoa Beach, David Brannon started his law enforcement journey at age 14 as a Police Explorer with the Cocoa Beach Police Department and rose through the ranks to Chief while attending high school.  On the first day after graduating Cocoa Beach High School in 1989, he was hired by the Cocoa Beach Police Department as a Community Service Officer.  He was later promoted to Communications Officer where he dispatched both police and fire and answered many intense 9-1-1 calls.  Nearly three years later, he attended and graduated from the police academy in Melbourne, Florida, in 1993. 

Hired as a Deputy Sheriff by then Volusia County Sheriff Bob Vogel, David worked in the patrol division, assigned to Orange City, DeBary, and Deltona district.  He served as Field Training Officer and was appointed as a Criminal Investigator assigned to working cases involving missing children, unexpected deaths, aggravated assault, armed robbery, and kidnapping.  He was promoted to the rank of Sergeant in 1999 and worked in court security supervising four court facilities, and then supervised a patrol shift for nearly three years in Deltona.  David was promoted to Lieutenant in 2003 and served as the countywide Watch Commander, Assistant Commander of Court Security, Emergency Operations Center liaison, Assistant Commander of Investigative Services in Deltona, and later in the patrol district in DeBary. 

In 2006, he was promoted to the rank of Captain and assigned commands over the patrol district in DeLand, Civil Process Unit, the patrol district in Deltona where he essentially served as the Chief of Police for seven years in an area of 90,000 residents, 80 deputy sheriffs, and a budget of nearly $10 million.  He would go on to serve again as the commander of the DeLand patrol district, Special Operations (helicopters, boats, community relations, school resource deputies, and the Daytona airport), Special Projects, Evidence, where he completed the construction of an $11 million state-of-the-art evidence facility, and his final post before retiring in 2019, was commanding the Extraditions, Records, and Warrants section.  During his career, David was named Law Officer of the Year (1996) and Investigator of the Year (1999).  He received eight additional commendations from the sheriff’s office and multiple other community awards and recognition, including Service Above Self and Rotarian of the Year, respectively.

Dave holds a bachelor’s degree in Organizational Management from Warner University, and he graduated from the prestigious Command Officer Development program at the University of Louisville – Southern Police Institute.

During his career with the Volusia Sheriff’s Office, Dave volunteered and later led a nonprofit within the sheriff’s office which raised over $1 million in monetary and in-kind support for at-risk youth served by the Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranches.  Dave is also a long-standing member of the Rotary Club of Deland, where he served as president (2009-10) and was a charter member of the Volusia Honor Air project.  Raising over $800,000 over five years, the project took 10 separate flights from Daytona Beach to Washington, DC, with each flight honoring 100 local World War II veterans.  While in the nation’s capital under police escort, the veterans visited the World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, and the Marine Corps memorials.  During each visit, they attended the Changing of the Guard and placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown at Arlington National Cemetery, all in a whirlwind trip before returning home that same evening to thousands of families, friends, and supporters waving American flags and giving them the welcome home most never received.

On February 28, 2022, David Brannon was hired as the Chief of Police for the City of Bunnell.