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The Olympian officer
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Editorial: Grant Condon
Photography: Jesse Wray-McCann and supplied
When Rachel Jarry joined Victoria Police in 2019, she was embarking on her second life in uniform.
But the blue colour might have felt unfamiliar, with the now Werribee-based constable more comfortable in the green and gold of Australia, having forged a career as one of the country’s leading basketballers.
That career is still ongoing — in fact, she was pivotal to the Southside Flyers winning their first Women’s National Basketball League (WNBL) title just last year — but the back of her playing card already has a list of stats and achievements that comfortably place her among the nation’s best athletes.
Constable Jarry has competed in two Olympic games, winning bronze in London in 2012 and achieving a fifth-place finish in Rio in 2016. She was crowned a WNBL champion with the Melbourne Boomers in 2011 and named an WNBL All-Star a year later.
In 2013, she took her talents to the USA to win a Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) championship with the Minnesota Lynx and then helped Australia to bronze in the 2014 FIBA World Championships.
Like most who go on to be elite athletes, Const Jarry’s talent stood out early. Throughout her childhood and teenage years, sport was a constant, as were appearances for junior state basketball teams at Australian under-16 and under-19 championships. At just 16, she moved to Canberra to take up residency at the Australian Institute of Sport.
But it was at a much younger age when Const Jarry’s love of sport and an unruly tree branch collided to give an early indication of her natural sense for law and order.
“I was about seven or eight at the time and our house had a nice smooth concrete driveway where I could dribble my basketball,” Const Jarry said.
“The neighbours had a tree that came across our driveway and it was about the perfect height of a hoop, so I used it to practice my shooting. But then the tree got too big, so I took it upon myself to do something about it.
“A couple of days later, my dad got a knock at the door. It was the neighbours; they had a letter in their hand and asked if we had a problem.
The letter was written by me, in pink Texta, saying that I was the local council and the tree was too big and had to be cut down.
“I’m not sure impersonating council staff was an ideal start for someone who became a police officer. And they never cut down the tree, probably out of spite.”
Further instilling Const Jarry’s childhood interest in policing was her grandfather, veteran Chief Superintendent Robert Davis.
Serving Victoria Police for 31 years from the 1950s to the late 1980s, Chief Supt Davis worked for some of the most renowned police units of the era, including the Wireless Patrol, the Russell Street and Broadmeadows Crime Investigation Bureaus and the Russell Street and Frankston Crime Car Squads.
His service record lists him as an ‘exemplary officer’ who was once commended for bringing down a large-scale illegal bookmaker ring. Highlighting his career was an Order of Australia Medal he received in 1982 for his service.
But to Const Jarry, he was just ‘Pop’.
“We’ve always been so proud of him as a family, he’s such a special person,” Const Jarry said.
“I can see why he was such a great police officer. He loves making sure everyone is OK and he really likes to help other people. I wish I could’ve seen him as a police officer because everyone says how good he was.
“He’s given me some advice and told me to take everything in my stride, to say yes to every opportunity that comes my way and to trust my instincts. He thinks I’ll be great at the job.”
Const Jarry's family connection to the force is made stronger by her younger sister Alanna, who works as a senior communications advisor in Victoria Police’s Media and Corporate Communications Department.
Despite the family ties, Const Jarry was still unsure about joining Victoria Police heading into her twenties.
But on one night in Melbourne in 2012, a shocking crime removed all her doubt.
Const Jarry, then 20, and a female friend had been at a cricket game before heading to bar in Melbourne’s CBD. It was a Saturday night during a WNBL season, so Const Jarry was sober when she and her friend left a bar at 2am and walked towards their car.
That’s when the pair was surrounded by a group of teenagers. Armed with knives, the attackers demanded Const Jarry and her friend to hand over their wallets and mobile phones. The pair obliged, but the group then set upon them, bashing and kicking them as they fell to the ground. While battered and bruised, Const Jarry and her friend fortunately avoided serious injury.
“It was a very traumatic thing that happened to us, but it was made so much easier by the work of the police officers who were first on the scene and then the detectives in the following days, weeks and months as the investigation process played out,” Const Jarry said.
“The way they helped me made me realise that I wanted to help people in that way. I knew then that I would eventually apply to join Victoria Police.”
Apply she did and, in December 2019, she entered the Victoria Police Academy.
Elected as leader of recruit squad 25, Const Jarry racked up academic achievements in her time at the Academy to rival her sporting record, topping her squad and winning the Angela Taylor Memorial Highest Academic Achiever Award, the Blue Ribbon Foundation Tynan Eyre Memorial Operational Safety Highest Achiever Award, and receiving a score of 100 per cent on her final law exam.
Const Jarry spent her first three months out of the Academy at Caroline Springs Police Station before she went into the WNBL’s Queensland hub to compete in the 2020 season shortened by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
She’s now settling into her surrounds at Werribee Police Station.
“Right now, I’m just trying to get more confident in my job, speaking to people and helping them,” Const Jarry said.
“I just want to learn as much as I can about general duties policing and go from there. I’m not 100 per cent sure on what units I might want to work for or what I might want to specialise in.
All I really want to do is help people.
“In a lot of ways, working for Victoria Police has been what I expected it would be like, but it’s also been different in so many ways. Every day is so different. You don’t know what to expect, and I really enjoy that.
“The best part is working with great people who want to help others. It’s a lot like being part of a sports team in that way — we are all working together to achieve a common goal.”
