" Copp's persona as an international rescue expert has its roots in 1985 when Copp said he dispatched himself to his first disaster.
He was watching a television report on the Mexico City earthquake and saw bulldozers approaching a collapsed building. Copp, who has said that he worked for demolition companies in the early 1980s, said he realized that anyone trapped in that building alive would be killed.
He went to Mexico City and began his career as a volunteer responder to earthquakes, hurricanes, landslides, tornadoes and other disasters.
Seven years later, Copp was living in Alameda, Calif., and had organized his American Rescue Team International when he criticized the state of California's approach to earthquake safety, saying that people who "duck and cover" as the state recommended would be killed.
He advocated a technique called the "triangle of life," a phrase he coined, in which people in earthquakes are supposed to get next to solid objects such as beds or desks instead of under them for safety.
He pointed to his Mexico City experience to support his claim.
When a county official sent an inter-office memo to his staff saying Copp's advice was "nonsense," Copp sued for defamation.
Copp lost the case and the Superior Court judge ordered him to pay about $4,800 in court costs. Copp appealed and also lost on appeal."