WHEN Captain Jacob Kopylov begins his 12-hour shift as a watch commander in one of the several Denver County jails where he works, he knows hell be overseeing some pretty tough customers.
Quiet and thoughtful, but with a steely demeanor and a hard physique that clearly advertises strength and agility, he explains why he and his fellow Denver Sheriffs deputies routinely carry guns.
Weve had deputies who have been killed, and quite a few who were nearly killed, he says in clear English, nicely accented with a Russian lilt.
Were dealing with very dangerous people serial killers, prison gangs, neo-Nazis, child molesters, pedophiles, prostitutes, drug traffickers, everything.
Although he looks pretty tough and his profession implies that he is Kopylov doesnt like to be referred to or thought of as a tough guy.
I wouldnt do anything illegal, he says, carefully outlining the forms of physical restraint, and, rarely, deadly force, which deputies are allowed to deploy in case of trouble.
Still, he acknowledges that sometimes force does have to be used and that he and the deputies who serve under him must be ready when the moment arrives.
Your main weapon is your mind, Kopylov says, relating that hes a fitness fanatic running 40-60 miles a week and working out daily, sometimes twice.
All that exercise isnt primarily to build strength, he says, but for the confidence it builds, a key attribute in his line of work.
Most people who are physically fit, they never overdo things. You just do enough. Its the people who are not confident who go overboard.
A veteran of the Denver Sheriffs Dept. since 1982, a captain by rank, a graduate of a special course at the FBI Academy and one of the few Russian speakers and even fewer Jews in the department Kopylov could easily be considered a strong candidate for a promotion.
But he scoffs at the idea of giving up his uniform and his gun.
Im happy where Im at. To be honest with you, I dont want to go very high because I like to work in the field, I like to work with my fellow officers. Im a soldier.
That brief self-definition goes a long way toward explaining a man who became a champion boxer in his native Soviet Union, an elite soldier in the Red Army and now a senior commander trusted with guarding some of Denvers worst bad guys.
Discipline, he says, is the main thing.
Thats right on the money, he says.
KOPYLOV, 58, was born in Russia and raised in Vitebsk, Belarus, famed for being the hometown of artist Marc Chagall.
His father, Lev Kopylov, was a career officer in the Soviet air force and a WW II bomber crew veteran. He passed away not long ago.
His mother Rachel lives in Denvers Allied Jewish Apartments.
She too was born in Vitebsk which, in the years before the Holocaust, was a major Jewish center. During the war, it was the site of mass executions of Jews and Gypsies by the Nazis, some 60,000 of whom are buried beneath a field where Kopylov remembers playing as a child.
A fleeing Jew from Poland, a relative of the family, made it to Vitebsk and gave dire warnings to the Jews who lived there, telling them Dont just leave now, run!
Many of the local Jews refused to believe the mans warnings, but Kopylovs mother did.
Along with many of her relatives, she fled eastward, all the way to Siberia, to avoid the Nazis. On their way out of Belarus, their train was attacked by the Luftwaffe. A cousin of Rachels lost her leg in that attack. Her mothers dress was pierced by several bullets, but none of them struck her body.
My mother just slipped away, Kopylov says. Its the only reason she survived.
Kopylov was drafted into the Red Army right after his high school graduation, serving the obligatory one year, in 1974-75. It was thanks to G-d, he says a few years before the bloody Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
He applied for the armys airborne corps, and was accepted, not because he was particularly fond of the airborne but because it had an excellent competitive boxing program.
Boxing had already been his passion for years. Fighting in the lightweight division, Kopylov was a member of the National Boxing Team, having started boxing competitively in his grade school years.
In his teens, he was a three-time silver medalist for Belarus and then became champion of his airborne division.
His fellow airborne troops, he says, were tough boxers, but he knocked them all out.
He started boxing so early, he says, because he and his twin brother Yevgeny were bullied in school.
For some reason he always got into trouble at school, Kopylov says. They attacked him and I had to protect him. I was older 15 minutes. So I joined a boxing club. And I fell in love with sports.
Did his skills at boxing put an end to the bullying?
You better believe it, he says with a smile.
A major reason for his success at the sport, Kopylov admits, was the anger he felt in his youthful years.
I was angry at everything, he says. I was just an angry young man.
Much of that anger, he acknowledges, had to do with being Jewish.
Anti-Semitism was endemic in Belarus, Kopylov says. When he was younger, his dark complexion gave him away as a Jew, or at least a member of a southern Russian minority, and this simply spelled trouble.
If youre dark in that region, he says, youre Jewish.
The kids who briefly bullied Kopylov and his brother were motivated by anti-Semitism. They used slurs like kike or zhid.
They learned it from their parents. Anti-Semitism is in the blood. I remember when I was six or seven years old, kids in the summer camp were anti-Semitic.
Anti-Semitism also flourished in adult society.
Many universities had quotas on the number of Jews admitted as low as 1%, Kopylov says and many professions were virtually closed to Jewish applicants.
It was because the Jewish people were starting to leave the Soviet Union and they thought it was a bad investment for the country. Plus, racism and anti-Semitism were state policy. It was horrible.
I talked to my wife about it shes an American Indian, a Chippewa and she couldnt believe it. She asked me why we didnt revolt. I told her, how can we revolt there?
You just accepted as a fact, growing up, that certain jobs, certain universities, are not for you.
Even before his military service, Kopylov and his family were determined to emigrate, but they were careful and patient. When he and his brothers military service was over, they would apply.
In the meantime, they kept a safe distance from the loud and controversial Soviet Jewry dissident movement that was then growing rapidly.
I had nothing to do with it. Kopylov says.
I never wanted to be political and get involved with the dissident movement because I knew where I would wind up in prison. So we lived a double life. In school, at work, you act like youre supposed to act. But in the kitchen, sitting there with the family, you have different conversations.
Ironically, only seldom were those conversations about actual Jewish topics.
The Kopylov household, like most other Soviet Jewish families, was not at all religious, he says.
Most Soviet Jewish people werent religious because that was taken away from us forcibly. Hebrew studies were very clandestine, secretive. You could not be open about celebrating Passover. My grandmother would get us all together and wed have matzah, but we had to be very quiet about it.
His family never went to synagogue.
The only place where I felt Jewish where I felt like a Jew was the cemetery. When Id go there, Id see the Stars of David and they would hire people to do kaddish.
THE familys ultimate emigration from the USSR was both joyous and tragic. All but Kopylovs twin brother received permission to leave. Yevgeny was denied because he supposedly knew state secrets from his army service at a nuclear testing facility in Kazakhstan.
Kopylov doesnt believe his brother learned any important state secrets in Kazakhstan, but he did receive enough radiation from the armys careless testing to eventually kill him.
Kopylovs hard and even exterior breaks down into tears when he relates how his twin brother was able to join the rest of the family in the US a year later, but that his radiation poisoning had progressed to the point of no return.
He passed away in Denver in 2006.
He was a victim of the Cold War, Kopylov says of his twin and the other soldiers who were sacrificed in what he calls the criminal negligence of the Red Army.
Life went on for the rest of the family. In Denver, where they settled, Kopylov worked for awhile at the JCC fitness center before he became fascinated with the idea of becoming a cop. He thinks the popular 70s show Starsky & Hutch may have influenced him.
He earned bachelors and masters degrees in criminal justice from Metro State and was quickly hired to become a sheriffs deputy. A few years ago, he was sponsored to attend a winter course at the famed FBI Academy.
At that time there werent many people in local law enforcement who spoke Russian and understood the culture, he says, adding that Denver was concerned about the rise of organized crime in immigrant Russian communities.
He sees no irony in the fact that he was both a paratrooper in the Red Army, an elite vanguard of the communist front, and a peace officer trained by the FBI, arguably communisms most determined foe.
I love Russia, Kopylov says. I will always love Russia, but not the Soviets. Not only me, but all my family. We despised the system there.
He is, he says firmly, 100% American, proud to be married to an American woman, Debbie, and to be the father of two American sons, Daniel and Gabriel.
He is also proud to be an American law enforcement officer and shared the pride of his fellow Americans when Osama bin Laden was tracked down and killed last week.
I am an American, he says proudly. I love this country. I know the value of freedom. Ill tell you what seriously, while looking into your face if I had to lose my life for this country, I would do so without hesitation.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
