Rikers Island inmate dies, seventh death at NYC jail this year

Vera Institute reports 15 died in NYC DOC custody last year

The New York City Department of Correction said inmate Clarence Woodward, 41, was pronounced dead Tuesday morning at the Robert N. Davoren Center on Rikers Island, marking the seventh inmate death at the facility this year. The death comes as Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration has pledged to close the jail complex.

The department said a correction officer found Woodward experiencing a medical emergency at about 5 a.m. Responding medical staff rendered aid, but Woodward was pronounced dead at 5:40 a.m. The department did not give a cause of death or describe the medical emergency. The State Attorney General’s Office and Woodward’s attorney have been notified, the department said.

“Our department mourns the loss of Clarence Woodward and we share our deepest condolences with his family and loved ones,” Correction Commissioner Stanley Richards said in a statement. “This tragedy will be thoroughly investigated.”

Mayor Zohran Mamdani also addressed the death in a Tuesday statement. “We do not yet know the cause of death, but we do know that too many New Yorkers have died on Rikers Island,” Mamdani said, adding that the Department of Correction and its oversight partners will investigate the circumstances surrounding Woodward’s death. “Our administration is fully committed to the critical work of creating better conditions in our city’s jail system and closing Rikers Island as quickly as possible,” the mayor said.

Court records indicate that Woodward, who self-identified as Black, was arrested Aug. 8, 2024, on charges including second-degree murder, to which he pleaded not guilty. His next court date was Sept. 29, according to the report.

According to local reports cited in the wire, Woodward is accused of stabbing two men at a Claremont laundromat at around 2:40 a.m. before fleeing the scene, killing one, while the other survived. Police said he was staying at a homeless shelter at the time of the alleged crime.

Woodward’s death comes less than a week after another Rikers inmate, 36-year-old Christopher Rodriguez, was pronounced dead at the facility at 8:39 a.m. on Aug. 19 after being observed in a state of medical distress. The department has also reported one inmate death in July and two each in May and March.

Fifteen people died in Department of Correction custody last year, according to the Vera Institute of Justice, a justice reform group.

“Enough deaths, enough delay. We must close Rikers,” New York County Defender Services said in a statement Tuesday.