By Lt. Jay Baker, Cherokee County Sheriff's Office spokesman

Three deputies with the Cherokee Sheriff’s Office graduated from the Georgia Public Safety Training Center (GPSTC) Regional Academy in Dalton, Georgia, Friday afternoon. Deputies Nicholas Timms, Robert Arrieta and Darren Townsend completed 408 hours of police training over the past 11 weeks. The deputies are currently assigned to the Cherokee County Adult Detention Center.

Deputy Timms received an award for the highest GPA in the class and Deputy Arrieta received the "HRIC" award for honor, respect, integrity and courage.

GPSTC is responsible for the coordination of the delivery of training to all state public safety officers, job specific training programs for state agencies, advanced and specialized training for both state and local peace officers, chief executive training and supervisory and management training. The Basic Mandate course, which is required to be a peace officer in Georgia, is an 11 week course which teaches the fundamentals of law enforcement.