A little girl found her forever home this summer with a police officer and his family in Kingman, Arizona.
Kingman Police Department lieutenant Brian Zach was working the night shift two and a half years ago when he received a call to check on a home, according to ABC 11.
The moment he arrived and found little Kaila, Zach knew something was wrong.
“I went there and realized that her injuries were definitely abuse and they needed to be investigated. I took care of her, took her back to the station … We watched ‘Wreck It Ralph,’ and we just bonded,” the officer recalled.
Kaila, who is now four-years-old, was badly hurt and it was the third time her abuse had been reported to authorities.
After a representative with the Arizona Department of Child Safety (AZDCS) took the little girl to the hospital for evaluation, Zach went home but was unable to forget about Kaila, according to ABC 15.
“Came home, told my wife…the story about this little girl that I just bonded with and would love to bring her home,” he said.
“And in the past 15 years, I’ve said that many times to my wife… of some kid that I met that I would love to bring home and love and take care of, so it was nothing new for her,” Zach continued.
The officer called AZDCS and asked if he could visit Kaila in the hospital and it did not take long before their family began talking about having her stay with them for a while.
Since the agency could not find any family members willing to care for the little girl, Zach and his wife Cierra took her in.
“We had to get a bed. We had to get a high chair, potty chair. She came with a bag of clothes that didn’t fit her and a sippy cup and that was it,” he told azfamily.com.
The Zachs formally adopted Kaila in August.
“The best thing to come out of 2020 is the fact that we gained an official member of our family,” the policeman commented, adding, “That was my Christmas present.”
“I love him — I love him so much,” Kaila said.