Daughter follows in police officer dad’s NYPD footsteps

She’s a true blue blood.

Ashley Jimenez had a sense of duty when she threw her cap into the air at Madison Square Garden at NYPD graduation on Aug. 6: following in the footsteps of her NYPD detective dad. 

Det. Manuel Jimenez, a 10-year veteran NYPD police officer from the Dominican Republic worked undercover to bust up heroin rings in the 1990s, and died of stomach cancer in 2001. Ashley was just 9 at the time.

“It was something that was a bit confusing just because as a 9-year-old you really don’t understand death or grief,” said the newly-minted police officer.

“On the flip side, it was also a very tender and loving process because I got to see how loved my dad was,” she said. “There were always a lot of friends and family in the house, a lot of people from the NYPD, detective friends.”

Jimenez always had a law enforcement career in the back of her mind, but she went to the New York Institute of Technology and majored in radio and television.

After graduation, she moved to California and worked for outlets such as “E! News” and NBC’s “Today” show, she said.

When she reached 32 — the same age her father was when he died — she decided it was time to go home and follow in his footsteps.

“When I moved back, I was like ‘I want to take the police exam,’” she said, adding that she missed the Big Apple. 

“I took the police exam and didn’t tell anyone about it,” said Jimenez, whose brother Antonio is an NYPD captain. “It was something that I decided to do. It’s in my blood.”

She also wanted to join the NYPD to help change the negative narrative she hears too often about police officers, she said.

“This is a calling,” she said. “I really hope to come into communities and connect with them and remind them that we’re here to help, not to harm”

Her big brother Antonio, 37, was surprised at first when she told him she wanted to join the Finest, he said.

“I think it’s a full circle moment,” said Antonio, who works in Patrol Borough Brooklyn North. “I helped raise her when we lost my dad.”

His sister now wears his father’s shield number, 14733.

“I remember wearing that shield when I was 5 or 6 years old,” he said. “Now my sister has it.”

Their dad would be “extremely proud” of Ashley if he were alive today, Antonio said.

“When I looked at my sister in uniform I saw my dad,” the proud brother said. “I even teared up.”