Family photoĭespite efforts to save his life by the officer and the Emergency Medical Services team, Ramirez was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital at 4:49 a.m. when the taxi driver approached a police officer 3 miles away in Manhattan’s Lower East Side neighborhood to say his passenger was unresponsive. The four men then entered a nearby taxi, a police source said, but Ramirez was alone in the backseat at 4:10 a.m. Surveillance footage from a nearby security camera shows Ramirez walking away from the venue with three unidentified men at 3:17 a.m., according to his brother, Carlos, who said he was briefed by investigators.
Their last stop was the Ritz Bar and Lounge, a popular, multilevel gay venue in the heart of the neighborhood’s Restaurant Row. Social worker Julio Ramirez, 25, met up with a friend on April 20 for a night out in Hell’s Kitchen, a Manhattan neighborhood near Times Square in New York known for its lively restaurant and bar scene.
