New York drops charges against Jose Alba, the bodega worker that stabbed an attacker to death.

 

New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg. New York Post/AP.

New York City has dropped charges against Jose Alba, the bodega worker that stabbed an attacker to death, saying they could not prove that the case was not self defense. New York Post. The case drew outrage after video was released that showed the attacker pushing and shoving the Alba and showed the attacker's girlfriend stabbing Alba. The attacker, Austin Simon, was a criminal with a long history of convictions. His girlfriend, who instigated the entire incident when her EBT card failed, will not be charged either. Manhattan DA Alvin Brag cited the fact that Alba was older and was cut off from escape by Simon and also cited the fact that Simon's girlfriend said that Simon was going to "come down here and fuck you up".

My Comment:

This story broke yesterday but I somehow missed it until today. It's a slow news day but even then I thought it was important to cover this incident. This case was always an obvious incident of self defense, and on that was almost impossible to argue against. 

Why was it so obviously self defense? Well for one, Austin Simon was a career criminal that was both dramatically younger and stronger than Alba. He also cornered Alba and entered an area where he had no right to be. And we now know that his girlfriend said that Simon was going to come and "fuck [him] up". Any reasonable person would think that their life was in danger at that point. 

I don't think DA Alvin Bragg deserves any credit for this. I think if it wasn't for the fact that the video of the attack went viral and made everyone outraged and the fact that conservative media like New York Post covered the story Jose Alba would still be in jail. I don't think for a minute that Bragg saw the light, he's probably seething that public outrage forced his hand here. 

And I was pretty surprised at the level of public outrage. It was bipartisan in nature and the subject trended on twitter. Nobody could understand why Alba was charged and everyone thought that the DA was way out of line. Even the Mayor of New York spoke out about it. And I understand why, if this case isn't self defense nothing is. 

But the problem is that a lot of people simply don't believe that self defense is a thing, especially if the attacker is a black male. Though Alba is not white, he killed a black man and no matter the circumstances some people have a problem with that. I will never understand this mentality, if Alba had been attacked by a white guy and killed him, I would have zero problem with that. Indeed, I would praise him for taking out the trash. 

These people are probably going to do whatever they can to ruin Alba's life. He has said he is afraid to return to work and I don't blame him. Though he has proven he can defend himself I fear that he may be put into position to do that again...