Mamdani Posts Emotional Message Mourning Accused Knife-Wielding Killer —and is Slammed by Victim’s Family

Mayor Zohran Mamdani publicly mourned an accused career criminal killer who died on Rikers Island this week — and the family of the victim slain in the sick, unprovoked attack is now livid, The Post has learned.

Hizzoner said on X that he was “deeply saddened” by the in-custody death — the seventh so far this year at the troubled jail complex — adding that, “my thoughts are with his family and loved ones as they grieve this loss.”

The inmate was identified as 41-year-old Clarence Woodward, an ex-con with nearly 30 arrests on his rap sheet, who was found unresponsive in his cell shortly after 5 a.m. Tuesday while awaiting trial for murder in the gruesome 2024 attack at a Bronx laundromat.

I am deeply saddened by the death of a New Yorker in City custody at a jail on Rikers Island early this morning. My thoughts are with his family and loved ones as they grieve this loss.

We do not yet know the cause of death, but we do know that too many New Yorkers have died on…

— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) August 25, 2026

To the family of victim Jose Miranda, the mayor’s statement was “a slap in the face.”

“It’s terrible,” his grieving mother, Marisol Miranda, told The Post on Thursday, adding, “That’s not fair. That’s not fair at all.”

The Rockland Country resident said that the mayor’s sorrow was misplaced, and should have instead been aimed at her beloved son, a 45-year-old dad of two who worked as a barber when he was stabbed to death. (Read more from “Mamdani Posts Emotional Message Mourning Accused Knife-Wielding Killer —and is Slammed by Victim’s Family” HERE)