A 25-year-old got in a taxi outside an N.Y.C. gay bar. He was dead an hour later

Social worker Julio Ramirez (25) met up with a friend on April 20, their last stop was the Ritz Bar and Lounge, a popular, multilevel gay venue in the heart of the neighbourhoods Restaurant Row.

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 according to nbcnews.com.

The four men then entered a nearby taxi, a police source said, but Ramirez was alone in the backseat at 4:10 a.m. when the taxi driver approached a police officer 3 miles away in Manhattan’s Lower East Side neighbourhood to say his passenger was unresponsive, nbcnews.com reports.

Despite 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. on April 21, a police source said, adding that the initial cause of death was listed as a «possible drug overdose».