Rikers inmate is 11th to die in ’21

A Rikers Island inmate died Sunday — marking the 11th fatality at the problem-plagued lockup this year, according to officials.

Karim Isaabdul, 42, died at about 7:25 p.m. of natural causes at the island’s North Infirmary Command, which houses inmates needing medical treatment, Department of Correction Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi said.

“Providing for the safety of incarcerated people is our core mission, and I am heartbroken that we have seen yet another death of a human being entrusted to our care,” said Schiraldi. “The cause of this death so far appears to be natural, but there is nothing natural about what is happening in our jail system right now.”

An official cause of death will be determined by the Office of the Chief

Medical Examiner, Schiraldi said.

Isaabdul was transported from his cell to a different dorm at 6:46 p.m. Sunday after he told an officer he was not feeling well, according to a Rikers source. Three minutes later, he became unresponsive, the source said.

He was being held on a felony warrant, according to a source and DOC records.

A Rikers source told The Post inmates are being “kept in deplorable conditions.”

“They are packed in” with at least 30 people crammed into cells designed for 10, according to the source.

“Some can’t lay down because [there is] no space,” the source went on. “They are in the intake longer than they should [be], up to a week or more.”

During a recent tour of the beleaguered facility, which is slated to close by 2027, city lawmakers witnessed an inmate attempting to hang himself amid “hellish” conditions.

Mayor de Blasio announced a series of reforms aimed at getting the complex under control, including punishing absentee and AWOL correction officers and deploying NYPD officers to courts to allow more DOC workers to staff the jails on the island.

Last Tuesday, about 1 in 5 Rikers employees didn’t show up for work, a top DOC staffer revealed Wednesday at a City Council hearing.

Gov. Hochul on Friday announced she was ordering the release of 191 Rikers inmates being held for “technical” violations of their parole.

She signed into law the Less Is More Act, which will stop the state from locking up formerly incarcerated people who fail to attend appointments with their parole officers, violate curfew or test positive for drugs or alcohol.