LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — Summer break is usually a time to relax and take your mind off school work.
However, for one Las Vegas teen, she used her summer to get ready for her dream career, which is the FBI.
“It is really special to walk into a building and see pictures of her,” McKenna Beckett said.
At 19 years old, McKenna is walking the same halls her mom, Megan Beckett, once did.
“She would bring home different cars or say, ‘Hey, look at this purse that has a camera.’ I would be like, ‘What the heck are you talking about?’” McKenna said.
What McKenna did not know then, was her mom was describing her job as an undercover FBI agent.
However, in 2021, a family trip to Costa Rica turned tragic.
“I just heard screaming,” McKenna said.
McKenna’s mom drowned while trying to save her little brother. However, this teen did not let tragedy define her.
She wanted to continue her mother’s legacy in federal law enforcement.
FOX5’s Victoria Saha: When did it click that you want to become an agent just like your mom was?
McKenna: I don’t think it clicked until I got here, I always had kind of in the back of my head. I’m going to school for biology, so I didn’t want to think, ‘Oh, I want to become a special agent when I grew up.’ But it was always in the back of my head.
The teen has spent her summer as an intern at the FBI Las Vegas division, going out with support staff and sitting in on SWAT team briefings.
In these moments, she sometimes finds herself surrounded by those who once worked with her mom.
“Its definitely cool to get an inside perspective of what she would kind of talk about,” she said.
McKenna is a biology major at Penn State and hopes to officially apply to the FBI a few years after graduated.
There is a FBI building named after McKenna’s mom; however our cameras were not allowed inside. McKenna gets to spend her internship days in there as well.
When asked if her mom’s death prepared her to one day take on an important job, she said it has helped her adapt to adverse situations.
“I think not knowing how to grieve, like that it teaches you how to control your emotions. How to take that into a different aspect in your life,” McKenna said.
It is grief that she has turned into purpose, because one day there may be another Agent Beckett walking the halls of the FBI Las Vegas division.
Those interested in learning about the FBI internship program could click here.
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