The sheriff's new shadow comes from Moldava
The Republic of Moldova has a national police force, but there's really no equivalent of a county sheriff, so the word doesn't have a translation.
"I didn't know what to expect. We know 'sheriff' from old (American) movies and cartoons and you think Chuck Norris and 'shooting,'" Iulian Baxan said.
Baxan, 17, has been visiting for a month and a half as an exchange student at Lockport East High School. One of his projects before leaving at the end of the school year was to spend the day shadowing a local official; he spent Thursday with Will County Sheriff Paul Kaupas.
"I arranged it for a Thursday so I could start off taking him to the county board and he could see how government doesn't work," Kaupas joked.
Baxan, however, had "never been to such an important political meeting" back in the former Soviet republic. Many people who have met Baxan, including Kaupas, have mistakenly thought of his country as part of Russia.
But Baxan was stunned to leave the board meeting and find a Ukrainian flag to represent another former Soviet state in Kaupas' office at the Will County Courthouse.
"Some of their police officers trained here as an exchange program of their own a few years ago and gave me that as a gift," Kaupas said.
Baxan toured the county jail and watched the same inmate get booked in.
"The jail was clean, more of a hospital, but it was kind of creepy with the (inmates) trying to make you uncomfortable," Baxan said.
Following the tour, Kaupas treated Baxan to his first lunch at McDonald's.
"I wanted to take him for chili dogs but reconsidered," Kaupas said.
The pair then went out to the sheriff's facilities on Laraway Road and looked over radio and computer equipment before shooting a pistol on the firing range.
"I think I bothered him all day with questions," Baxan said of Kaupas, who praised the Moldovan's understanding of English.
"There were a few times I had to explain a difference. Someone on the staff told me something, and I said, 'Are you nuts?' and Iulian thought I was referring to actual nuts," Kaupas said.
"I think I learned more about (Kaupas) as a person watching him with employees and the public than being the sheriff. But it's a job and his decisions affect how deputies do their job and prisoners are treated," he said.
