Quote:The South Carolina Highway Patrol is planning to hire more troopers than usual next year to try to bring down the state’s rising highway death rate, but it’s having a hard time with recruiting.

“With the recent anti-law enforcement sentiment that’s been going across the country, we, along with other law enforcement agencies, are feeling those effects. There’s no doubt about that,” says Lt. Kelley Hughes, a spokesman for the agency.

Law enforcement officers across the country are under increased scrutiny because of shootings and deaths of people in custody, and they’ve also become targets. Last week, Deputy Darren Goforth was pumping gas into his patrol car outside Houston when a man came up behind him and shot him in the back multiple times, killing him. This week, Illinois police Lt. Joe Gliniewicz was shot and killed and police are still looking for the killer or killers.

“With that current climate, we have seen a reduction in the number of applicants that we have apply for the agency,” Lt. Hughes says. “So we’re having to broaden what we do to try to reach more applicants, including going out of state. We need a large pool of applicants to be able to find the right people that can do this job and do it effectively, that want to do this job for the right reasons.”