as new police recruits become harder to find Nationwide some law enforcement agencies from other states are hoping to find their next officers here in New Jersey Alpharetta Georgia's Police Department is back holding a recruitment event in Hasbrouck Heights after so much success last year where they recruited nine officers from the Garden State Melissa Rose Cooper reports just like every other police department in in the country and in the metropolitan area are recruiting is down so Captain jakai Braithwaite it's a Georgia's Alpharetta police department is turning to New Jersey in search of qualified candidate candidates for his team last year breathwaite who's also a Jersey native hosted a recruiting event right here at Hasbrouck Heights High School it was absolutely successful it yielded nine candidates we I believe last year we tested maybe about 27 and we hired nine and it was it was so successful that we thought we would be crazy not to try to do it again this year for three days residents interest it in leaving New Jersey to join the Alpharetta Police Department attend recruitment sessions inside the school gym hoping to pass this challenging physical assessment Shanique Rosario is one of the candidates who was hired after attending last year's event now she's back sharing her experience great quality of life that's big for me for any of these candidates who are just looking for a better lifestyle a more tranquil lifestyle if they're have planning to have families and everything everything is readable Alpharetta for the for the young people for the people trying to settle down it's just a great lifestyle there and the police department is extremely well ran but every resident that joins Alpharetta just think that's a sign of the sign of the times that it's not only New Jersey facing this problem that it's that's other states facing the same problems that we are Montville police chief Andrew caggiano attributes the decline to several issues including covet and social unrest during the last few years I take my Agency for example we used to we're still Service Agency we used to get over 100 applicants easily a year when we would give our tests and the last test we gave I got 25. so we've seen it um you know and this is not unique to Macho this is you you know this is around the state we're seeing a large decline in the number of even applicants this has always been a challenging profession um I I think when you look back in just the last several years you have what's commonly known now it's a term called the Ferguson effect the issues that that uh Ferguson Missouri uh caused on the the issues with liking or not liking the police yeah the murder of George Floyd uh which certainly had probably the most impact on policing in the history of policing uh and you know that's those are the two I think biggest issues I know covid certainly had a large impact uh where people I I don't know what they're doing for a living but people want to stay home instead of going to work every day James Barger graduated from Hasbrouck Heights High School in 2018 and joined the Alpharetta Police Department in 2022 after not being able to become one New Jersey it's such a competitive profession in New Jersey compared to Georgia that I couldn't really get on I had a chance with the state police then I got an injury in college football so it pushed me back there and this presented itself and I I didn't know anything about policing in Georgia whatsoever so I kind of went in just with the most minimal knowledge you could have with no prior police experience or anything like that so I went down with an open mind and really was welcoming to any criticism or anything like that and I went down and learned all the ins and outs of it and I met some great people I work with great people it's a great profession I love it Friday is the last day for the Alpharetta Police recruitment event and has Heights this event also includes 9-1-1 candidates anyone interested is welcome to walk in for NJ Spotlight News I'm Melissa Rose Cooper