Local sheriffs sign mutual aid agreement

In response to last year’s shooting of WSP Trooper-turned-Pacific County Sheriff, Scott Johnson, and the tragic murder of Rainier Police Chief Ralph Painter, Cowlitz County, Washington Sheriff Mark Nelson and Columbia County, Oregon Sheriff, Jeff Dickerson, discovered that no written mutual aid agreement for non-emergent situations, existed between their counties.

Sheriff Nelson began contacting other lower Columbia sheriffs, on both sides of the river, but found that no agreement between these county law enforcement agencies existed. Although it had been discussed for many years, it had never happened. This time was to be different.

Sheriff Nelson contacted Sheriff Dickerson of Clatsop County Ore. Sheriff Tom Bergin, Wahkiakum County Sheriff Jon Dearmore, and Pacific County Sheriff Scott Johnson to schedule a meeting.

The group met for the first time in Clatskanie, and immediately found that they were of one mind; to forge an agreement between their respective agencies to extend their law enforcement authority across the river in both emergency, and some non-emergency situations. In little over an hour, they had penned an agreement for their respective legal folks to review.

The agreement allows those county deputies from the agreeing agencies in both Oregon and Washington to enforce laws on either side of the river, until a local officer can get there; at which time the case would be turned over to local authorities. Additionally, each agency has agreed to bear its own, regularly budgeted costs and liabilities, until such time as those become outside what it typically budgeted for; then the requesting agency would begin absorbing those costs. It is believed that these occasions would be rare, however, because in most situations, local and/or state support would be able to relieve any out-of-state support that may have responded.

The document was also written to allow cities within the counties to join in with the agreement.

On May 18, the five county sheriffs met again. This time, to place their signatures on the document, and their trust in one another; knowing that when needed, their respective offices will be there for each other.