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New York

NYPD cop's daughter is born three years after his death

By New York Post
Published | Updated
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Widow Pei Xia Chen reacts while clutching a photo of slain New York Police Department officer Wenjian Liu as his casket departs his funeral in the Brooklyn borough of New York January 4, 2015. (REUTERS/Carlo Allegri)

As mortally wounded NYPD cop Wenjian Liu lay in a Brooklyn hospital in 2014, doctors asked his stricken wife if she wanted his semen preserved so that she might someday have his child.

“Of course she said yes,’’ a friend told The Post — and Tuesday, two-and-a-half years after Liu’s murder, his widow gave birth to their daughter.

Liu’s widow, Pei “Sanny’’ Xia Chen, named the baby “Angel’’ as a tribute to her slain hero husband — whose police hat is now next to her bed at New York-Presbyterian Hospital on the Upper East Side, said the pal, fellow cop widow Maria Dziergowski.

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New York Police Officer Wenjian Liu, 32, is seen in an undated picture provided by the New York Police Department December 20, 2014. A gunman ambushed and fatally shot two New York City police officers on Saturday and then killed himself, police said, and a social media post indicated it may have been in revenge for the police chokehold death of an unarmed black man. Bratton identified the slain officers as Rafael Ramos, 40, and Wenjian Liu, 32. Liu had been married for two months. REUTERS/NYPD/Handout via Reuters (UNITED STATES - Tags: CRIME LAW POLITICS CIVIL UNREST HEADSHOT) ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS PICTURE IS DISTRIBUTED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS - RTR4ITC3 (REUTERS)

The day Chen was artificially inseminated, “she had a dream that Wenjian was there in a white gown looking like an angel and that he handed her a baby, and he said, ‘It’s a girl, a little angel,’ ’’ Dziergowski said.

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“So [Chen] knew before everyone that it was a girl.

“The baby’s adorable, smiling, laughing,’’ added Dziergowski, who was with Chen at the hospital Tuesday. “She has a lot of hair, a lot of black hair.’’

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FILE- In this Dec. 20, 2014, file photo, investigators work at the scene where two NYPD officers were shot in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York. Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, were ambushed and shot to death in their vehicle without warning by a man who approached the passenger window of their marked police car. The suspect, 28-year-old Ismaaiyl Brinsley, then fatally shot himself. In the moments leading up to the attack, Brinsley posted online he wanted to kill "pigs" in retaliation for the death of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man killed by police. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File) (AP)

Chen — who had only been married to her policeman husband for three months before he and his partner were killed in an ambush by a cop-hating madman — was admitted to the hospital around 12:30 p.m. Monday and gave birth at 4:35 a.m., Dziergowski said.

The baby, whose full name is Angelina, weighed 6 pounds, 13 ounces and is 19.5 inches long, Dziergowski said.

Sources said the baby’s birth was particularly poignant for Liu’s parents, who lost their only son, 32, in the double murder.

Read more from the New York Post.