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A Life Undercover: Meet Retired DEA Special Agent Rosalynde Fenner

WUNC | By Anita Rao,
Frank Stasio
Published January 30, 2017 at 11:30 AM EST
Image of special agent Rosalynde Fenner
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Rosalynde Fenner spent 25 years as a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration. She served abroad as part of 'Operation Snowcap' in 1988, 1989 and 1991. Here she is in the Chaparé region of Bolivia."
Rosalynde Fenner
Image of Rosalynde Fenner age 6.
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Rosalynde Fenner age 6. Fenner grew up in Durham where her grandparents owned a corner store.
Rosalynde Fenner
Image of retired special agent Rosalynde Fenner on her first day of training at the jungle operations training center.
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Rosalynde Fenner on the first day at the Jungle Operations Training Center where she trained for her overseas counter-narcotics missions.
Rosalynde Fenner
Image of special agent Rosalynde Fenner
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DEA Special Agent Rosalynde Fenner serving in a counter-narcotics operation in the Chaparé region of Bolivia in the late 1980s."
Rosalynde Fenner
Image of Rosalynde Fenner while she was overseas serving as part of a counter-narcotics operation.
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Rosalynde Fenner in the late 80s when she was serving time overseas as part of 'Operation Snowcap,' a counter-narcotics operation in 12 Latin American countries.
Rosalynde Fenner
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Rosalynde Fenner is now a retired DEA special agent working as an adjunct professor at Saint Augustine's University in Raleigh.
Rosalynde Fenner

  Note: This program is a rebroadcast from January 25, 2016.

Rosalynde Fenner has always been fearless. As a young kid growing up in Durham, she called cabs for herself and took them alone wherever she wanted to go. In high school, she spent a week doing ride-alongs with an officer in the Durham Police Department. And at the age of 22, she embarked on a 25 year career as a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, including stints in Guatemala, Bolivia, New York City, and Puerto Rico. 

Fenner is now an adjunct professor at Saint Augustine's University in Raleigh, and the president of the North Carolina Chapter of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE).

Host Frank Stasio talks with Rosalynde Fenner about her storied career and her reflections on the criminal justice system today.
Tags
Politics The State of ThingsSOT Meet SeriesRosalynde FennerSt. Augustine's UniversityDEADurham Police DepartmentNOBLE
Anita Rao
Anita Rao is an award-winning journalist, host, creator, and executive editor of "Embodied," a weekly radio show and podcast about sex, relationships & health.
See stories by Anita Rao
Frank Stasio
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
See stories by Frank Stasio
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