Aurora Police Detective Nghiem reflects on events that influenced career path

For half a decade now, Stephanie Nghiem has been doing something she never thought she would.

“I was in IT and cyber security prior to,” she said, “and I thought I was going to continue on that route.”

Yet Nghiem was called to become a police officer, she says, after a traumatic incident.

“Unfortunately, I fell through the cracks of the system,” she told CBS News Colorado’s Kelly Werthmann. “So, I wanted to help other victims to make sure that nobody else was lost in the system and they would actually get their justice.”

Five years ago, Nghiem joined the Aurora Police Department and has quickly moved through the ranks. She was promoted to detective just last week and is currently the only Asian-American woman on the force.

“I think it’s awesome,” she said. “It’s awesome when I go back to my community, and they see me as a role model.”

And Nghiem gives a lot of credit to her family and culture for her success.

“My parents were immigrants from the Vietnam War. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, my entire family fled over here,” she said. “Knowing that they came from nothing and giving us a life here has given me more than enough motivation to do well and to be able to take care of them back.”

In that moment, Nghiem couldn’t hold back her tears.

“It’s the appreciation of where my roots come from and how hard my family has worked just to give [my sisters and me] a simple life,” she explained. “We can actually choose what we want to be, and they didn’t really have that. They didn’t have the choice, but for us, we got to choose what we want to do in life.”