New York police detective WenJian Liu was ambushed and killed two and a half years ago in a murder that shocked the city. This week, his widow gave birth to his baby daughter.
Angelina was born Tuesday at Weill Cornell Hospital. Her mother, Sanny Liu, asked doctors to freeze her husband’s sperm the night he died so that she could one day fulfil their dream of having children.
Liu, 32, and partner Rafael Ramos, 40, were shot dead as they sat in a patrol car in Brooklyn on December 20, 2014.
The night after his death, Sanny dreamt that he handed her a baby girl, police said. She got pregnant through in-vitro fertilization.
“I told my friend, ‘It’s going to be a baby girl.’ My friend said, ‘No, you haven’t even checked the sonograms,’ but I was right!” she said in a statement released by the police department.
Thousands of police officers attended Liu’s funeral where Sanny, who had married him just months earlier, fought back tears to tell mourners that she had lost her “soul mate” and a “wonderful husband.”
Liu, an only child, moved with his parents to New York from China as a 12-year-old in search of the American dream.
His parents, left heartbroken by his death, were photographed at the hospital welcoming their new granddaughter.
Liu’s killer Ismaaiyl Brinsley also shot his ex-girlfriend on December 20 and committed suicide after the double murder.
Hours earlier, he claimed he wanted to avenge the deaths of African Americans during confrontations with police — incidents that have fueled years of nationwide protests and national debate.
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