ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 14, 1997 TAG: 9704140027
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOANNE POINDEXTER THE ROANOKE TIMES
The volunteers are asked to donate at least 25 hours a month to the Sheriff's Office.
Sergio Kopelev was eager Wednesday to pin a deputy's star to his brown uniform, snap on his holster and climb into a Bedford County Sheriff's Office cruiser.
He recently completed 16 weeks of police training at the Central Shenandoah Criminal Justice Center in Waynesboro, and was excited to work in the field. Kopelev delivered subpoenas, answered a property-damage call and assisted in a domestic dispute during his first 12-hour shift.
But the 26-year-old wasn't paid for his work. He did it to help out his community and to provide training for his paying job as a Liberty University campus security officer.
Kopelev is one of the first recruits in Sheriff Mike Brown's Reserve Deputy Program.
The program is one of the citizen-involvement projects Brown promised to start when he ran for sheriff, and it has taken the 18 months he's been in office to get the program started.
Reserve deputies are asked to donate at least 25 hours a month to the Sheriff's Office. They are paired with a paid deputy during their shifts.
The program was started in conjunction with Liberty, which is converting its campus security office to a police department. It provides the university's officers 60 hours of mandatory field training needed for police certification, and it gives the Sheriff's Office additional officers at no cost to taxpayers.
The first six participants - Kopelev and five other Liberty officers - recently completed the academy and are scheduling their field training around their regular work hours at the Lynchburg college.
Four other Liberty officers and two guards from B&W Security are enrolled in the academy now. Brown said he hopes to have 15 to 20 reserve deputies certified within the next year.
Volunteers furnish their own equipment, including police revolvers. Their uniforms are hand-me-downs other deputies have outgrown or turned in when leaving the department, Brown said.
The program seems to be a good financial move for the county. With a starting deputy earning $9.82 an hour, the office would get $29,460 a month worth of labor if 12 volunteer deputies worked 25 hours each. Overtime for the county's 17 full-time road deputies is also expected to decrease.
Bedford County has at least three officers on a shift, but sometimes it takes two of them to handle a situation, leaving another area uncovered. The program, Brown said, gives all parts of the county more constant police coverage.
The reserve deputies are scheduled to work "the busiest hours and in the areas where we are going to need more deputies on the road," Brown said. Current statistics indicate those hours are Thursday, Friday and Saturday between 7 p.m. and 3 a.m.
Bedford's program is similar to New Kent County's Auxiliary Deputies program. Four of the county's 20 paid deputies started in that 11-year-old volunteer program, said Sgt. Richard Morris, the coordinator.
"The program gives you somewhere to draw from when you need an employee," Morris said. Auxiliary members who do not have police-academy training work traffic for funerals and sports events in addition to delivering court papers for the Sheriff's Office. Those with police training work patrol shifts like the volunteers in Bedford.
"I'm absolutely pleased and am in the process of looking for more volunteers," Morris said.
Bedford County's reserve deputies also will help organize and train for Citizens on Patrol, a neighborhood watch group project that also was part of Brown's campaign platform.
With Citizens on Patrol, which Brown referred to as the Sheriff's Posse when he was campaigning, residents will have direct contact, via cellular telephone, with the sheriff's dispatcher to report emergencies and suspicious activities.
Kopelev said working as a deputy will allow him to handle situations he wouldn't encounter at Liberty.
"We have one business, the bookstore, and a 15-mph speed limit," he said. "It's a dry campus, and everyone is single. It's a different environment."
The volunteer deputy said his first shift in Bedford County was routine until he and Sgt. Kevin Adams had to answer a domestic call at a convenience store. The two had to take home a woman who had been beaten. The suspect was waiting at the woman's home when they got there. After Adams placed him under arrest, the suspect became belligerent, and, at lockup, spat on a jailer.
Kopelev also is a volunteer firefighter and emergency medical technician with the Boonsboro Fire and Rescue Squad. He said the fire, police and rescue jobs are his way of getting involved in the community.
Kopelev, a Russian immigrant who came from New York to the area in 1993 to pursue a religion degree at Liberty, said he doesn't worry about the danger that comes with the job.
"I try not to focus on that," he said. I feel like I'm accomplishing something. I do it because I enjoy it."
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSEN/THE ROANOKE TIMES. Sgt. Kevin Adams (fromby CNBleft), Sergio Kopelev and Sgt. Richard Hinkley are among the
participants in Bedford County Sheriff Mike Brown's Reserve Deputy
Program, a citizen-involvement project.