CENTER – Town Manager Cole Webb recently announced that the Town of Center has hired a new police chief – Randall Aragon. 

Aragon comes to Center from La Marque, Texas, where he most recently served from October 2021 to October 2025. Aragon stated he is excited to be the “new chief,” in town, and he wants to help keep the streets safe, but he also wants to implement some new ideas in the town, to help the town adapt to a more police friendly community.  

Aragon brings many years of experience to the town, along with extensive education, and some community policing ideas that have worked well in other towns, that he also hopes to implement in Center. 

When asked why he decided to apply for the position, Aragon stated that he started out years ago in a town half the size of Center, and after that the cities he served in just kept getting bigger and bigger.  He is looking forward to retiring in a nice small-town community after serving as the chief and working for the town for a while.  

In addition to law enforcement Aragon has worn many hats and has also lived in many different places over the years, along with being a US Army Captain during the Vietnam War. Aragon spoke about becoming the chief in Center, and what his vision is for the town. 

“This is my last job. I call it my last rodeo. I have been a chief for 32 years in many different locations including Alaska. I have been with seven or eight different departments, and every department I have stayed with for about 3 to 6 years and then I would move on to the next challenge. I want to serve 3, 4, or 5 years here. I love being a leader, I love being in law enforcement. I really enjoy it. I am hoping to do some good things here. I want to make good things happen for the city that I work in, for my town and for my community. I am a big believer in community policing. We don’t have that here, and I want to get it started here. It’s basically where officers take over in certain areas in the community.” 

Aragon stated that his idea is for the officers in the department to work the whole city, but he wants to assign certain officers to certain areas in town, where they can become known to that area and protect that area by helping to improve that area by preventing crimes from happening. Aragon has been successful with his community policing policy and has won awards for his implementation of community policing.  

He stated that he is excited about bringing many of his ideas to the town, but he also wants to do everything in phases in terms of introducing his ideas to the town too. Aragon stated he does not just go into any city and take charge and start making changes. He stated that for about 90 days or longer he likes to do an assessment of the city to see what’s going on and to really study the city. “I don’t want to make any sudden changes at all unless it’s an emergency. My job is to look, listen, and see what is going on around me. I then take my findings to the city manager, and I will speak to Cole about that. I will tell Cole this is my assessment of what’s going on here, these are the issues that I have, and these are my recommendations.” Aragon stated that once he gets the ok from the city manager, the next 90 days he will start working on implementing and fixing any problems that he has seen through his assessment. His third phase is really making the changes necessary that need to be made to make everything better and safer in Center.  

Aragon stated that he is also looking at moving to the town of Center in May, as he also likes to live in the same town he works in, he currently lives in a town near Center but would like to live in Center to really be there for the people when they need him.  

He stated that he leads by using some important procedures and philosophies, “One, you have to have a felt presence, people need to know you are here. Two, you have to have order maintenance, in other words code compliance. This keeps manicured streets, manicured homes, manicured businesses, and houses. When criminals see this, they don’t want to be around that area.  Three, problem solving, and you have to have four, law enforcement. I use the philosophy of a very famous police chief, William Bratton. There needs to be mutual trust, problem solving, a partnership within the community, and effective crime control strategies.” 

Aragon is looking forward to working with the town of Center to make the community safer and provide crime preventative strategies by using effective community policing. Aragon stated that he also wants to make sure that when he retires, he provides mentorship to someone, so that they will be ready to take over when he retires. He stated he has tried to do that in most departments he has worked in, and some of the chiefs are still there, and others have retired as well, but he believes in doing this to leave the town in the best way possible.  

Aragon is excited about working with the community and being the new chief of Center, and he looks forward to meeting and working with everyone in town.