Justice for Julio Ramirez

At around 7:00 p.m. on April 20, 2022, Julio Ramirez and his friend Carlos Camacho went out for the night in Hell’s Kitchen, a Manhattan neighborhood in New York City. The pair visited several bars before ending their night at the Ritz Bar and Lounge. Later that night, outside the bar, Ramirez would enter a cab with three unidentified men, and an hour later, he would be found “unresponsive” in the back of the cab.

Julio Ramirez was born in Long Island, New York on August 16, 1996. He was 25 years old and had recently moved to New York City after obtaining a bachelor’s degree and two master’s degrees from the University at Buffalo. Ramirez was working as a bilingual mental health counselor in Brooklyn’s Bushwick. His family and friends described him as someone who was caring, smart, and hard-working.

According to Jackie Flores' Tik Tok video, on the night Ramirez died, he was drinking with his friend Carlos Camacho, and at some point in the evening, the two got separated.

At 2:53 a.m., Julio Ramirez messaged Camacho and asked him where he was. Camacho responded by saying he was inside the bar. Ramirez asked Camacho to meet him outside, but Ramirez got no response. At 3:45 a.m., Camacho replied to Ramirez, telling him he was home and suggesting that Ramirez do the same.

Later that day, Camacho woke up and texted Julio, saying: “Girl what happened I thought we left together LOLZ. I woke up and was like “Julio’s in the living room.”

Another friend of Julio Ramirez, Shiva Campbell, noticed in their text thread that Ramirez had stopped sharing his location at 3:46 a.m. She became alarmed when she noticed the messages she was sending had turned green instead of blue, meaning either his phone had no battery or he had turned it off. Campbell knew that Ramirez always had his phone with him and would never let it discharge, and if he did, he would text her on his iPad, which he didn’t.

Ramirez’s family and friends began to call local hospitals, but there was no luck in finding Julio Ramirez. It wasn’t until April 21, 2022, that Mount Sinai Beth Israel hospital called Ramirez’s parents and informed them that their son had passed away. The hospital told the parents that Ramirez was declared dead at 4:49 a.m. and that his cause of death was a possible overdose. His friends and family didn’t believe his cause of death because Ramirez never used drugs. According to the Daily Voice, the medical examiner’s office later changed the cause of death to “pending further study.”

The family spoke to the NYPD, and the police told them that the surveillance footage showed Ramirez alone outside of the Ritz bar, but that after a while he was seen walking away with three other unidentified men. Ramirez and the three men would then get into a taxi. An hour later, the taxi driver approached an NYPD officer and informed the officer that there was an unresponsive passenger in his vehicle. NBC News reported that the NYPD officer looked in the back seat of the cab at 4:10 a.m. and found Ramirez alone. EMS arrived, but after many failed attempts, Julio Ramirez's life could not be saved.

Three days after Ramirez passed away, his family went to his apartment to collect his belongings. Ramirez’s brother wanted answers about what happened to his brother, so when he found his brother’s laptop, he tried to access his iCloud account but noticed that the password had been changed. Instead, he checked his email. In the emails, he noticed that his brother’s bank account had been cleared, all the money from his savings and checking accounts was gone by money transfers between April 21 and April 25. In the span of five days, someone had stolen the $20,000 that Ramirez had saved. After uncovering this, Julio Ramirez’s family believe he was targeted.

Julio Ramirez was buried at Pinewood Cemetery in Farmingdale, New York, on April 30. Ramirez’s loved ones continue to seek justice for him. They want police to release surveillance video that would allow the public to identify the three men. They want to know more about the taxi driver: what he knows and what happened inside the taxi. The family won't give up until they find out the truth about what happened to Julio Ramirez.

If anyone has any information about the death of Julio Ramirez, please contact the NYPD Crime Stoppers.