By Kate Augusto

When Jessica Wagner wakes up in the morning and puts on her Boston Police uniform, she is unsure of what she may need to do on any given day. She might be getting on a motorcycle to patrol a parade in the city or she may need her bullet-proof vest as she’s rushing to a crime in progress.

Although Wagner did not always envision a career in the police department, her passion for police work surfaced early, when she did her first co-op working in juvenile probation in East Boston. Her second co-op was doing security at a hospital in Quincy.

Wagner is the first woman on a special unit within the Boston Police Department (BPD), which is similar to a Special Weapons and Tactics team, more commonly know as the SWAT team.

This is not how Wagner envisioned her future when she was a student at Northeastern eight years ago and wanted to work with the mentally challenged.

“I was more interested in my first job