At vigil for Bronx mother, 23, advocates say three women were led to safety

Relatives of Nathaly Ramirez, the 23-year-old mother police say was pushed from a 15th-floor balcony in Allerton, gathered with domestic violence advocates outside her Bronx apartment building. According to the head of one advocacy group, three women at risk left the crowd that day and were taken somewhere safe.

Police say the fall happened around 3:30 a.m. Tuesday. They say Ramirez’s ex-boyfriend pushed her while she was holding her 8-month-old daughter. Somehow the baby was spared the worst of the fall. She survived and is recovering in the hospital. Police took a man into custody after a search that lasted several days.

Family remembers the Bronx mother they called Michele

The people closest to Ramirez knew her as Michele. Her mother said that what her daughter said most often was “I love you.” Her grandmother described a young woman who always smiled, loved everyone and gave the best hugs, and who was still thinking of her daughter at the worst moment of her life.

The grandmother also addressed the advocates who came to the vigil. She urged other women to leave a relationship at the first warning sign.

Domestic violence advocates say the vigil reached women in danger

Stephanie McGraw is the founder of WARM, a group that works to get women out of abusive situations. Among the many people who came out for Ramirez, she said, were women quietly enduring abuse of their own. By her account, three of them were driven away to safety in a van, and one more stepped forward just as the gathering wound down.

“Nathaly lost her life here, but her life is going to save so many other women,” McGraw said. Those rescues, she said, are what she will remember from the day, and they are the reason her group does its work.