The Roseville Police Department has welcomed a new officer to its ranks — Taras Kokhanyuk, who was born in Ukraine and raised in the Sacramento area.
Kokhanyuk earned a degree in Criminal Justice from Sacramento State. Before joining the police department, he already worked for the City of Roseville in Code Enforcement, where he worked alongside the city’s Social Services Unit.
In that role, Kokhanyuk built relationships with local businesses, addressed private-property blight and helped connect people experiencing homelessness with long-term solutions.
According to Kokhanyuk, he chose a career in law enforcement because of the challenge and meaningfulness of the work and his desire to make a positive impact on the community and people’s lives.
Kokhanyuk recently completed the department’s Field Training Program and officially began serving as a Roseville police officer. He has been assigned to the department’s weekend Relief Shift.
“Welcome to the family… again, Officer Kokhanyuk!” the Roseville Police Department said in announcing his appointment.
The Sacramento region is home to a large Slavic community. According to available estimates, about 31,000 residents in the region have Russian ancestry, while another 32,000 have Ukrainian ancestry. Together, the Russian and Ukrainian communities number approximately 63,000 people.
The Ukrainian community is also one of the largest groups of people from the former Soviet Union in California. According to Census data cited in a 2023 Slavic Sacramento study, 62,431 California residents reported Ukrainian ancestry. When people reporting mixed Ukrainian ancestry are included, the figure rises to 106,201. About 41,600 Californians speak Ukrainian, including more than 25,700 who reported having good knowledge of the language.
Kokhanyuk is not the only Ukraine-born officer serving in the Sacramento region. The West Sacramento Police Department, located about 20 miles southwest of Sacramento, has a team of officers who were born in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and other former Soviet republics.
Slavic Sacramento, together with production studio Wreactor, recently produced a documentary, “Red Heat in West Sacramento”, about immigrants from the former Soviet Union who chose careers in American law enforcement.
The region is also home to Mikhail Venikov, a Kazakhstan-born U.S. Army veteran and police officer with the San Mateo Police Department. Slavic Sacramento previously featured Venikov’s work in a special video report after joining him on patrol in San Mateo.
