Man arrested in 19-year-old woman’s shooting death on Manhattan street

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A man has been arrested in the shooting death of a woman in Manhattan’s Flatiron district on Thursday night.

Ruddy Osias, 27, of Bayswater, Queens, has been charged with murder in the death of Erica Lopez, 19. 

Lopez and her boyfriend Andres Arias, 21, had been at a birthday celebration on a swanky rooftop bar in Manhattan’s Flatiron district on Thursday night when an argument broke out at the bar with another group of customers, after a girl groped Lopez. 

The couple decided to leave around midnight but they were then confronted by some of the group in the street before a car pulled up and a man opened fire, killing Lopez and injuring Arias. 

Osias faces charges of second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon for allegedly shooting the Connecticut couple after they reportedly got into an argument with strangers.

According to the New York Post  Osias is alleged to have jumped out of the car and began opening fire. 

Arias is believed to have only have been saved after Lopez pushed him out of the way. 

In an exclusive interview on Saturday evening, Arias told DailyMail.com that an NYPD detective had called him late in the afternoon to tell him that his girlfriend’s killer had been arrested.

‘They didn’t go into specifics, but just said they’d got the guy and that he ended up confessing,’ Arias recalled of the conversation. ‘I was just very emotional. I was really sad, but also happy. Yes, it doesn’t bring back Erica, but legally she got the justice she deserves. That’s the main thing I was worried about, that she wouldn’t get justice.’

Arias is recovering from a bullet wound at home in Norwalk, Connecticut. 

‘My body still hurts, especially my left side where I got shot, but I’ll be fine,’ he said.

He said he attended a vigil for Erica at a local church Friday night where he met her mother there for the first time.

‘The first thing I told her was, “I’m truly sorry. My job was to protect her no matter what happened and I failed her,”‘ he recalled. ‘She told me it was God’s choice to take her home at this time. We just hugged and started crying. She’s a strong woman, a really, really strong woman. She has a big heart, just like Erica.’    

On Friday, heartbroken Arias shared a video of the couple’s final hours together as they enjoyed a night on a rooftop bar.  

Arias told DailyMail.com exclusively that his girlfriend Erica Lopez may have saved his life by shoving him out of the way when the shooting started.

‘Erica pushed me out of the way, and one bullet went through her chest and grazed me through the left side of my ribs,’ he said.

‘I saw my girlfriend Erica falling to the ground, and I dove to grab her so she didn’t hit her head,’ he explained. 

‘I turned her over, and she was bleeding through her left chest.’

Certified in CPR, Arias said he performed chest compressions to try and keep her alive before he then blacked out.

‘Once I came back to my senses, I saw EMTs putting Erica onto a stretcher and other EMTs putting me onto another stretcher,’ he said.

The couple were taken by ambulance to Bellevue Hospital and placed in the same room, separated by a curtain, where Lopez died a short time later.

Paying tribute to his girlfriend, Arias said: ‘She’s a spiritual amazing woman. She would always bring the good out of me and she would never fail to put a smile on my face. 

‘Her energy would inspire you to get out of your comfort zone. She was a sweetheart, she was free and she was always love.’

The night started out as a celebration at 230 Fifth Rooftop, located near Madison Square Park at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 27th Street.

Arias, a student at Southern Connecticut State University, and Lopez, a hostess in a restaurant in a Norwalk mall, had taken a train into the city from their hometown in Norwalk, Connecticut Thursday afternoon. 

In the city, they met up with about 10 people, including Arias’ cousin and the cousin’s boyfriend who was turning 27 years old.

At the bar, they struck up conversations with another group of about six young men and women.

‘They were complete strangers but we were all having conversations,’ Arias recalled. 

‘We were all buying each other drinks and food. We were getting to know each other. It was a really good time.’

Then a woman in the other group grabbed Erica’s butt and also groped another one of their female friends, Arias said.

‘That girl in the other group started the whole incident,’ he said. 

‘She was drunk. My girlfriend told me she was touching their butts, without their consent.’

Arias confronted the other group and an argument broke out.

Arias, Lopez and their friends left the bar. He said they were talking about the argument as they walked down the street. 

Then they realized they’d been followed by the others, who drove up to them in their vehicles. It was about 12:30 a.m. Friday at the time.

‘That’s when we see one guy get out of his car and he’s confronting us and saying, “do we have a problem here? I hear you guys are talking smack about us,” Arias recalled. 

‘We told them, ‘there’s no problem here, we just want to tell you tell your girl to keep her hands to herself because she was getting all touchy touchy with me and my boy’s girlfriends.”  

At that point, the man from the car was joined by his girlfriend, who stepped out of his vehicle and shouted, ‘I could do whatever I want,’ Arias said.

The man ordered the woman to get back into the car, he said. 

Arias said another vehicle then pulled up driven by a black man who was about 6 feet tall, had dreadlocks and was wearing a black shirt and black jeans.

The driver of the second vehicle, a gray sedan, then exited the car with a gun and fired a shot into the air, Arias said.

‘Do we have a problem?’ Arias said the shooter then shouted. 

‘Me and my boy said, ‘No, we don’t have a problem because you just brought a gun to a situation that’s already being handled,” Arias recalled saying.

That’s when the gunman fired twice more, in their direction. 

Arias said one of the bullets penetrated Lopez’s chest and then grazed him, leaving a hole in the left side of his rib cage.

It was later that morning, as Arias was recovering and sedated, that staff told him his girlfriend had died.

‘I told the nurses to leave the room, then I started screaming and crying,’ Arias recalled. 

‘This is the second person that’s died in my hands. My grandpa died in my arms two years ago from a heart attack.’

Arias was released from the hospital a few hours later and was recovering at home Friday evening.

One of Lopez’s best friends, 19-year-old Alma Johana Corona, told DailyMail.com back in Norwalk Friday night that she was struggling not to cry as she tried to console her friend’s parents and younger brother.

‘I have cried so much I don’t have any more tears,’ Corona said. 

‘She was my best friend. We’ve known each other since pre-school.’

She added: ‘She had so many friends. She was nice to everyone. She had a beautiful personality, energy. I just can’t believe this was meant for her. 

‘She doesn’t have any enemies. I just don’t understand why anyone would do this to her.’

Police were called to the scene of the fatal, double-shooting in the Flatiron District at around 12:30am Friday morning.