Army Sgt. Angel Sarah Rampersad gave everything she had for this country. Her family gave her a send-off worthy of that sacrifice.
And they made sure New York City’s openly Marxist mayor had nothing to say about it.
The family of a Queens soldier killed by an Iranian missile strike quietly blocked Mayor Zohran Mamdani from speaking at her funeral — and the scene that followed was something New York City won’t forget quickly.
A Mayor Left Sitting in the Fourth Row
Mamdani arrived at the service for Army Sgt. Angel Sarah Rampersad at Calvary Assembly of God church in the Ozone Park section of Queens with a prepared eulogy loaded on an iPad, sitting in the fourth row as the ceremony began.
Governor Kathy Hochul, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, and other officials took turns at the microphone. Mamdani’s name never came up.
“They kept calling names and then he was never called,” a source who attended told the New York Post. The same source said Mamdani looked toward his staff and put the tablet away after his name went uncalled.
A source involved in the funeral’s planning said Rampersad’s family did not want Mamdani’s presence to turn the service into a political event. “The family is more conservative and wanted to limit any political distractions,” the source said.
Afterward, Mamdani’s press team circulated the eulogy he never delivered, labeling it as prepared. “Sergeant Rampersad had tomorrows waiting for her: birthdays, ordinary mornings, evenings spent with her loved ones,” the text read. “But she gave every one of them up so that we could have ours — so that we could stand here today, safe and protected.”
Fine words. But a grieving family from Queens decided they didn’t want those words coming from that particular man.
First-term City Councilman Frank Morano, a Staten Island Republican and far from a Mamdani ally, was seated near the mayor during the service. “I was surprised the mayor didn’t speak,” he said. “I didn’t understand why they would have lower-level officials speak and not the mayor.”
Morano’s confusion is understandable from a pure protocol standpoint. Sitting mayors typically get the lectern at events like this. But the Rampersad family wasn’t running a protocol exercise. They were burying their daughter.
Who Rampersad Was and Why She Mattered
The Department of War said Rampersad, 28, of Ozone Park, New York, was killed in action during an enemy attack at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan.
According to US Central Command, Rampersad and two other US service members were killed while CENTCOM and partner forces “defended against Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks.”
The other two service members killed were identified as 1st Lt Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Pvt Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas. They were deployed to Jordan in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, the international campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
“Our beloved Sgt Angel Sarah Rampersad was a gentle giant,” her family said in a statement. “She was involved in her church at an early age, playing the drums and winning every track race among her peers. She stood up for those who couldn’t fight for themselves — a defender, a friend. She loved her family fiercely and will live on in the hearts of everyone she touched.”
She enlisted in the Army in 2019, and her awards include the Army Commendation Medal, the Army Achievement Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Medal, and the Army Service Ribbon.
She was posthumously promoted to the rank of staff sergeant.
First responders and community members lined the nearby sidewalks to salute her flag-draped casket as it passed by, headed to funeral services at Calvary Assembly of God Church, just half a mile from Rampersad’s home.
Why the Family Had Every Reason to Keep Mamdani Quiet
Mamdani isn’t just a Democrat. He’s a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, an openly Marxist organization whose own platform calls for government seizure of major corporations, abolition of the Senate, and the creation of a classless society. That’s not a smear — that’s the DSA’s actual platform.
The DSA calls for ending US economic sanctions on regimes like Iran, which openly funds terrorist groups. Mamdani’s long-standing connection to the DSA requires close and careful evaluation.
And that’s the part that stings. The Iranian government killed Angel Rampersad. The DSA, Mamdani’s political home, wants the United States to drop sanctions on that same Iranian government. The family apparently did the math.
Mamdani has echoed views on Israel and the Palestinians that are nearly identical to the DSA platform, which is not surprising given that he found his way to democratic socialism through pro-Palestinian activism.
As a student at Bowdoin College, he helped found the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.
None of that has anything to do with honoring a 28-year-old from Ozone Park who died defending American forces from an Iranian missile barrage. But it has everything to do with why her family didn’t want him at the microphone.
The apparent snub comes as 9/11 families continue to say Mamdani should not attend this year’s ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the World Trade Center attack. So far Mamdani has rejected the calls that he stay away from the solemn ceremony.
A Change.org petition from 9/11 families cites Mamdani’s ties to radical imam Siraj Wahhaj and his refusal to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada.”
Siraj Wahhaj hosted Mamdani at his At-Taqwa mosque during the campaign, and Mamdani received criticism at the time from former FBI agents for failing to condemn the cleric.
New York City elected this man anyway. That’s on them. But the Rampersad family didn’t have to play along.
There’s something worth sitting with here. A block association president spoke at that funeral. A state senator spoke. A borough president spoke. The sitting mayor of the city where this soldier grew up — the mayor who showed up with a prepared speech on an iPad, fully expecting to be called — sat in the fourth row in silence while the names kept getting called and his wasn’t.
That’s not a scheduling accident. That’s a family making a statement without saying a word.
Seven months into his tenure, Mamdani is already finding himself unwelcome at events across New York City outside of his small socialist bubble.
The DSA’s platform openly calls for the abolition of capitalism, the seizure of major industries, the elimination of the Senate, and an end to sanctions on regimes that kill American soldiers. Mamdani has described himself as having “many critiques of capitalism.” He built his political career through pro-Palestinian activism. He leads a city that sent Angel Rampersad to serve under the American flag, and she came home in a casket.
His press office put out the speech anyway. That move tells you something about the man’s instincts — when shut out by a grieving military family, the first impulse was to make sure the prepared remarks still made the news cycle.
Angel Rampersad deserved better than to have her funeral turned into a backdrop for a socialist mayor’s press operation. Her family made sure that didn’t happen. And the city of New York — the part of it that bleeds red, white, and blue and sends its kids to serve — noticed.
Sources: New York Post, Fox News Digital, Daily Caller, Military Times, CBS New York, ABC7 New York, Ynet News