New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has now twice offered public condolences to accused killers who died in city custody, without ever naming the victims police say they killed.
Quick Take
- Mamdani posted condolences on September 17 for Luis Alberto Lopez Castillo, who died in city custody after a Queens court appearance.
- Castillo faced murder, manslaughter and robbery charges tied to the 2025 killing of Ronell Marte, a 26-year-old autistic man, in a Bronx robbery.
- Mamdani’s post never mentioned Marte, drawing sharp criticism from commentators and news outlets.
- The pattern repeats an August incident in which Mamdani mourned Rikers inmate Clarence Woodward, accused of stabbing Jose Miranda to death with a meat cleaver.
A Death In Custody Sparks A Familiar Fight
Mamdani announced the death on social media the day after it happened. “A person in City custody died yesterday evening following a court appearance in Queens,” he wrote. He said Department of Correction staff performed CPR before paramedics rushed the man to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The mayor’s statement ended with a promise that the Department of Correction and its oversight partners would investigate the death, calling that “standard practice”. He closed with the line that triggered the backlash: “I extend my condolences to his family.” Nowhere in the post did he name the man or describe the charges he faced.
Who The Statement Left Out
Reporters quickly identified the man as Luis Alberto Lopez Castillo, who faced murder, manslaughter, robbery and weapons charges connected to the 2025 killing of Ronell Marte, a 26-year-old autistic man, during a Bronx robbery. News outlets noted that Mamdani’s message said nothing about Marte or his family, focusing entirely on sympathy for the accused man.
The omission became the center of the criticism. Commentators argued the mayor’s words reversed the natural order of sympathy, comforting the family of an accused killer while staying silent about the young man he allegedly took from his own family. That framing spread fast across conservative media and social platforms within hours of the post going up.
This Isn’t The First Time
Three weeks earlier, Mamdani faced nearly identical criticism after the death of Clarence Woodward at Rikers Island. Woodward had been awaiting trial for stabbing Jose Miranda to death with a meat cleaver inside a Bronx laundromat in 2024. Mamdani wrote that he was “deeply saddened” and that his “thoughts are with his family and loved ones as they grieve this loss”.
That post also skipped any mention of Miranda, the man Woodward was accused of killing. Critics at the time called the message “absolutely shameful,” and Miranda’s family said the mayor never once mentioned their son. The repeat pattern now gives critics a stronger case that this is a habit, not a one-time slip.
Standard Practice Or Misplaced Priorities
Mamdani’s defenders can point to his own language: he framed both posts as routine responses to in-custody deaths, paired with a promise of investigation into jail conditions. Custodial deaths at Rikers have drawn scrutiny for years, and city leaders often issue condolence statements regardless of the underlying charges. Seen that way, the posts read less like sympathy for criminals and more like boilerplate crisis communication.
That defense only goes so far. A mayor’s words carry weight, and choosing to name a grieving family while leaving out the victim entirely sends a message, intended or not. When the same pattern shows up twice in a month, with two different men accused of violent killings, it stops looking like an oversight and starts looking like a values statement. New Yorkers, especially the families of victims like Ronell Marte and Jose Miranda, deserve better than silence from their mayor.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing backlash after offering condolences to the family of an inmate who died in city custody without mentioning the murder and robbery charges he faced in the 2025 killing of 26-year-old Ron Marte, a man with special needs. Prosecutors allege Luis… pic.twitter.com/TKLsgTjNl2
— TalkRadio 77 WABC (@77WABCradio) September 22, 2026
The Department of Correction has confirmed it will review the circumstances of Castillo’s death, as it does with all in-custody deaths. Whether that review changes how City Hall talks about these cases remains to be seen. For now, the mayor’s office has not addressed why the victims’ names were left out of either statement.
Sources:
yahoo.com, internewscast.com, vinnews.com, nypost.com, israelnationalnews.com
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