Jennifer_HannahLea

Jennifer Manry Final Podcast Transcript

By: Hannah Nguyen and Lea Zawada

[Typing on keyboards, faint radio chatter, the phone rings.]

JM: 911 emergency. I grew up in a law enforcement family. I was running around the police department since I was born.

[Cue Music]

[Narration:] Jennifer Manry is a dispatcher at the Menlo Park Police Department. She’s just celebrated her 28th birthday. She’s wearing the blue polo of the MPPD and on one of the many screens is a photo of her pug, wearing the same uniform. She grew up listening to exciting stories of cop life.

JM: My dad was a sergeant for 30 years and he was at redwood city police department.

They would tell me stories as i got older.

[Narration:] Like the time he was in a shootout.

JM: The guy was pointing a gun at his pregnant girlfriend and he had my dad on the ground and my dad just took a chance and shot the guy. The only thing he brought home with him was if he had a stressful day you could always tell. He was a little bit quieter he was a little bit more short. But I only know that now because I have days like that too.

[Narration:] It felt natural for Manry to work in law enforcement. She was proud of the work her dad did, putting away bad guys.

JM: My dad loved his dispatchers and he appreciated them very much. So was like yah you know talk to a couple of them you know I would do little sit alongs. I remember the first day that I did my first sit along that was something where I was like this is fricken awesome. So after that I just kept doing little sit alongs and I’m like yep that’s what I wanna do.

[Narration:] She found a job that excited her. It was stressful at first, especially when she was on her own for the first time.