Photo: Escondido Police Department/Facebook
Things recently came full circle for Natalie Young, a new deputy with Colorado’s El Paso County Sheriff’s Office.
Officer Jeff Valdivia was on a routine call to arrest a parole violator at a residence where conditions were so dire that he filed for protective custody for an infant he encountered there.
“You hope there are no gaps in the system and you hope everything works the way it’s supposed to,” he added of the decision to remove the child from the home.
Just weeks ago, Valdivia learned what became of the child when he received a call from Natalie’s adoptive mother, Shelley Young.
PHOTO: Escondido Police Department/FacebookPHOTO: Escondido Police Department/Facebook
Shelley informed Valdivia — who is now the sergeant for Escondido Police’s community-oriented COPPS division — that Natalie was preparing to graduate from El Paso County Sheriff’s academy.
Shelley then invited Valdivia to pin Natalie’s deputy badge at her graduation ceremony last month.
“It was an incredible high,” Valdivia told theUnion-Tribune. “You make the best decision you can, you hope you wrote a good report and you hope the system is going to work. From there on, it’s out of your hands.”
Shelley said Valdivia inspired Natalie to become a deputy.
“Natalie fought through it and she made a choice, you know, to set her moral compass to be good and to help others,” she told CBS News.
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At the Sept. 23 graduation, Natalie and Valdivia met for the first time since that day 22 years ago.
“It was a huge honor,” he said, according to CBS News.
“He is going to be there when I need it,” Natalie told the outlet, “and I am very excited about that.”
source: people.com
