Caption:Jose Ozuna and Ruth Pena
Credits:Lynford Morton
HAWTHORNE, NJ - Jose Ozuna remembers the moment he decided that he wanted to be in policing.
"We had the experience when a detective came to our house looking for my brother. The detective didn't come in like he was the police officer and my brother was the bad guy. He came in and talked to him like he was an older brother, like a father figure. And that inspired me," Ozuna said.
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Ruth Pena got interested in policing in high school but found her focus during an internship. "Everything started when I was in Hackensack High School. That's when I first took a criminal justice class, and that's when I said, 'I want to be a police officer,'" she said. "I did an internship in the Special Victims Unit. That was the path that opened up for me because I wanted to study people."
"There were a lot of tough cases, sexual abuse, mental abuse, and physical abuse. Every day was something new. That's when I became more interested in learning and helping those children who couldn't speak for themselves."
Ozuna and Pena are Hawthorne Police Department's two newest cadets, graduating from the police academy on March 21 and showing up for their first day of work on Monday, March 25.
"Because law enforcement is evolving in different ways, you need more workers," said James W. Knepper, Hawthorne Chief of Police. "We did a year study where crime stats are involved, population, some of the things that we do."
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"There have also been a lot of changes coming through the attorney general guidelines. It now takes officers more time to do things," he said.
Knepper said officers help with the department's evolution to more community-based models. Having school resource officers, Junior Police Academy, National Night Out, and Citizens' Police Academy are all examples of community-based initiatives that further integrate officers into the communities they police and create a need for more support.
"We have been doing this now for about 27 years, and we believe in it," Knepper said. "We're in 100 percent, and our community is behind us. We're all one, and that's the only way it works."
With that in mind, Knepper said he had a recruiting team that vetted the two recruits. Knepper and his senior team didn't look at the applicants first. "We have a detective, detective sergeant, a patrol officer who is a drill sergeant, and another patrol lieutenant. That was our recruitment committee."
The committee took care of the testing and initial interviews.
"We had 65 people take the written exam and a physical. From there, they interviewed 20, and then we interviewed seven," Knepper continued. "Our two recruits came out number one and two in our interviews and the interviews of our two captains. They also came out number one and two from the recruitment committee."
"They are both very well-educated. Both of them have graduated from college. Ruth Pena has also got a little bit of experience. She's very astute. Jose is working as a paraprofessional in the school system and works with one of the high schools as a basketball coach.
"We know that coming in they will both be very community-minded and integrate well into the community," Knepper said. "That is very important to us, that we have officers that are very approachable. That's what we need in our community to continue our philosophy, so they fit right in."
Caption:
Hawthorne's two newest police recruits at National Night Out, Aug. 1, 2023.
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