She spent the past 20 years looking for the police officer who had saved her from her violent parents when she was a little child.
Sally Zheng did not have a happy childhood due to the fact that her parents mishandled her, but everything changed when she met a police officer who made her feel secure.
Zheng first encountered Officer Ralph Torres when she was 14 years old, and with his assistance, she was able to escape her terrible parents. She explained it by saying, “It all originated from a recollection, a memory from my youth.
Even though I was in a difficult circumstance, he was right there with me. He calmed me down, and he said, ‘as long as he’s there, no one is going to harm me’. After enduring many years of mistreatment, this was the very first time that I felt safe,” said the girl.
Zheng was given Torres’s phone number before he left, but once she moved in with her foster family, she was unable to find it. She had no other option except to go on the search for him all by herself.
It was challenging, but in the end, Zheng decided to become a police officer so that she would have an easier time looking for her savior
“As soon as I received the position, I went out there and asked everybody, even other law enforcement officers with the same last name as myself and Officer Torres, can you assist me? “I have a story,” she said as she thought back on it.
She went so far as to send Torres a letter in which she expressed her desire to rekindle their relationship.
In May of 2017, at a roll call, Zheng’s request was granted and finally came true.
After spending the previous 20 years looking for her hero, Zheng was overcome with emotion when she reconnected with him. Torres said, “I just acquired another daughter.”
Torres recalled Zheng as a scared kid and understood that he needed to reassure her now that she was an adult, on the other hand, Zheng could finally ask the question that had been on her mind for all these years.
“I thought maybe in the back of his brain, how is that young girl doing, so I want to tell him that I’m doing very well. I want to stand in front him and say that I am doing so well, and I want to know if he is proud of me.”
His response was “Very much so.”
Zheng has high expectations that other foster children would learn from her example that there is always a chance for them to find a permanent home.