The city of La Center has had policing services provided by the Clark County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) since January 2024, but a five-year contract began in February of this year.
The contract, approved by Clark County Council in October 2024, runs for five years, ending in late 2029. Over the contract’s five-year term, La Center will pay a total of $5,332,506.99. La Center can negotiate a new agreement with CCSO after 2029.
CCSO deputy Clint Fraser said La Center has a low call volume, which was on full display from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Monday, June 30, during a ride-along with Reflector reporter Cade Barker. The only call during that time was a possible firearm being used at Daybreak Park outside of La Center city limits. Fraser responded in case a drone was needed. It turned out to be juveniles lighting off fireworks a little too early and in a location not allowed.
In La Center, no calls for service occurred, and there were no egregious traffic violations during that portion of Fraser’s shift. He covered the entire city, traveling through neighborhoods multiple times. People in vehicles or on foot would often wave at Fraser.
“Being embraced by the city of La Center itself, the staff here, the community who loves having enforcement back in the area, all the thumbs up, the waves, the ‘thank you for your service,’ is like, that’s incredible,” Fraser said. “To feel wanted in a community, you know, we still struggle as a profession to get our message across that we’re here to help. But this community, I think, certainly understands that we’re here to do that.”
He said with the low call volume, a lot of his work is self-initiated, which is primarily traffic enforcement. But there are other issues that are important in a small community, such as the quality of life issues, including barking dogs and parking.
“Things that don’t seem like the big call that everybody goes to and it’s super exciting,” he said. “But it’s what affects us in our day to day lives that makes living here a good community. If we take care of that stuff early and quickly, then it doesn’t transition into the worse problems. I think the people here appreciate that we have the time to take care of those smaller issues so they don’t become bigger issues, and they seem really appreciative of that.”
La Center has the occasional theft, domestic violence and other calls, but Fraser said the prevalence is pretty low.
For the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, having quality deputies is important for people to have trust and be thankful for the law enforcement officers who protect their communities.
“I think we have a good group of people here that are training our new hires and turning out quality deputies to be out on the road,” he said. “We’re not only good cops with good people, which I think is important. You have to have a good balance, you know. We’re not robots, obviously, and so people that understand discretion and understand that the people we serve have different lives, different perspectives, different cultural norms that we do have to really take into account in how we do our jobs, and I think we’re turning out some pretty good new people that are in line with that sort of mentality.”
What got Fraser interested in the career
Fraser was first exposed to the law enforcement career at a young age.
“Like most little boys, my interest started at a super early age with, you know, ‘the police are super cool,’” Fraser said. “The story I tell a lot of times is when I was a Cub Scout at 8 or 9 years old, I went to some sort of Cub Scout event and they had the local PD there with a canine, and I got to hold the bite sleeve for the canine. They just walked the dog into the bite and I thought that was the coolest thing in the world.”
Fraser grew up in Southern California. After high school and college, Fraser traveled a different route that landed him in working in the entertainment industry. He worked on the business side and worked as an apprentice reporter for a news station. He also worked at DreamWorks on the business side of operations, he said.
“During that time, my wife and I took a trip to New York City, just to visit some friends and vacation, and we were staying in a hotel across the street from the World Trade Center when it was attacked on 9/11,” he said. “And so I spent that day running from the destruction but also watching first responders, police and fire, and everybody else, help out at the location. We were stuck in New York for several days because we couldn’t get flights or trains or anything out to get back home. And just seeing the job that those first responders did really kind of changed something that kind of spurred on that idea of doing something better, you know, for my community, for myself, for the world, hopefully.”
Fraser said that he felt at a loss personally because he felt like he couldn’t do anything to help on that day in history. But watching the beauty that was created by the people who were trying to help inspired him.
“And I was just trying to get home to my family and get my wife home and so it just was obviously a very traumatic, but unique experience,” Fraser said.
After they returned home, he remained working in the entertainment industry while his wife was working toward getting hired by the Federal Bureau of Investigations, but Fraser said that didn’t work out for a variety of reasons.
After that, Fraser’s wife began looking to get hired on by a local law enforcement agency in Southern California.
“And I was like, ‘Well, if you’re going to do it, maybe I’ll give it a shot, too,’” he recalled. “And so I started applying down in Southern California, but that was at the height of the housing market and things like that, and we just couldn’t afford to buy a home in a decent neighborhood working on civil service type job salaries. So we decided to make a move up here.”
After the move to the area, with family in nearby Woodland, Fraser applied with the city of Battle Ground. He started off as a community service officer at Battle Ground so he could test with other area agencies, but ultimately transitioned into a police career with the Battle Ground Police Department.
In his 17-year career with Battle Ground, Fraser had his full circle moment when he was able to work as a K-9 officer. He also was a motorcycle officer for the department.
“The whole career path has brought me a ton of rewards,” he said. “In terms of just the cliche of being able to help people, it’s really true. There’s a lot of excitement and fun that goes with it, you know, getting in chases and fighting bad guys and things like that are all great. You get that cool adrenaline rush and you know you’re still making a difference in the community by taking bad guys off the street, which is great. But then there’s also going to school events or public events and getting to meet people. When I was a motor officer, I got to do that quite a bit and I got to be the cool guy on the shiny Harley that everybody saw, most wave to and make an impact that way.”
When Fraser was working a canine, he was participating in a lot of public demonstrations, just like when he was first introduced to the career field as a little kid.
“The connection with the dog and people, not only just how it related to my early experience with law enforcement, that definitely kind of made that dream come true, but just being able to see people’s interaction with the dog and then me and that connection that we had, it’s irreplaceable,” Fraser said.
How Fraser recommends a career with CCSO
When Fraser transferred to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office after 17 years in Battle Ground, he said the opportunities at the larger department were immense.
He explained that there is a huge group of people to work alongside and learn from.
“Obviously working here in La Center, you know, has been a great thing,” Fraser said. “The community here is fantastic. I can obviously do (drones), so I can respond to calls throughout the county and help out with that as well. In addition to that, I’ve pulled a variety of different helpful titles around the department as firearms instructor, 40-millimeter instructor, taser instructor. Used to be an FTO (Field Training Officer). Don’t do that anymore, but the career as a whole has been pretty amazing.”
Fraser is also an Emergency Vehicle Operations Course instructor, he said, which is a specialized training program for equipping officers and deputies with the skills and knowledge to safely operate emergency vehicles under high-stress and emergency situations.
In his time in law enforcement, Fraser has seen technology advance greatly, but the tools the sheriff’s office supplies its deputies have been beneficial to the job.
“The sheriff’s office gives us a lot of the tools that we use and are very, very helpful from (drones) to pepper ball launchers to 40-millimeter launchers to, you know, quality firearms and optics and rifles and things like that,” he said. “So all that’s evolved. When I stated we didn’t really have patrol rifles, that wasn’t really a thing. We had shotguns and less lethal, you know, beanbag shotguns, and that’s evolved and now we have 40-millimeter launchers that are much more effective than the pepper ball platforms. Everybody’s equipped with patrol rifles and trained on them for the rare occasions that there’s a need for that superior firepower.”
Fraser also pointed out the other options available at CCSO, such as canine, marine patrol and different detective and instructor positions.
“I got to do a lot of the things in the city of Battle Ground, many of the things I do now, too, but it’s just on a bigger scale. I’ve got more people involved,” Fraser said. “It’s just nice to have the options because if you’re going to make a career out of this, which most of us do, for 20, 25, 30 years, whatever it is, it’s nice to have those options because it keeps the longevity there for you.”
Fraser sees the opportunities able to expand to more people in the agency when staffing returns to a more positive level. Having opportunities for different aspects in the law enforcement career has major benefits, Fraser said.
“You stay on patrol for a very long time and you see the world a certain way and it tends to burn you out a little bit,” he said. “So it’s nice to change your view a little bit, get a little bit of a different perspective on what you’re doing.”
