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‘I don’t want a problem’: Chilling new video shows NYC bodega worker begged for calm, was stabbed himself

July 11, 2022 | | Print Article

The case of Jose Alba, the 61-year-old Manhattan bodega worker who was arrested and jailed on murder charges after fending off an attack from a violent ex-con with fatal force, has outraged the nation, and a chilling new angle of the crime apparently showing that Alba himself was stabbed in the attack is certain to keep the fury flowing.

The video, obtained by The New York Post, reveals that Alba was attempting to calm 37-year-old Austin Simon — a man with a lengthy rap sheet — prior to the vicious attack.

“Papa, I don’t want a problem, papa,” Alba tells Simon as the career criminal confronts him on the wrong side of the counter.


(Video: New York Post, via Daily Mail)

 

The entire altercation was over a bag of chips.

Simon’s girlfriend did not have the funds to purchase the snack for her child and claimed Alba snatched the chips from her daughter’s hands.

Simon allegedly stormed into the shop to settle the score. In the ensuing scuffle, Alba fatally stabbed Simon with a box-cutting knife taken from a candy shelf.

Simon was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

In the new footage, Simon can be seen going behind the counter to confront Alba and the store worker can be seen repeatedly stabbing his attacker.

Minutes pass, according to The Post, and it then appears that the girlfriend produces from her purse a knife of her own and stabs Alba.

According to The Post, police sources have said that, while Alba was stabbed during the incident, the girlfriend has denied the deed.

At Alba’s arraignment last week, his attorney stated that Alba received three stab wounds to the shoulder and one to his hand.

Simon can be seen in the new video laying in a pool of blood, with Alba still clutching his bloody knife and the girlfriend crying.

Police arrive, and it is the victim of the attack who is hauled off to Rikers on second-degree murder charges and $250,000 bail.

As BizPac Review reported, NYC District Attorney Alvin Bragg was widely condemned on social media for charging Alba with murder and sending him to Rikers Island — home to the worst of the worst of the Big Apple’s criminals — when it seems clear to all that he was acting desperately in self-defense.

Even NYC Mayor Eric Adams, who has been repeatedly criticized for his soft-on-crime policies, spoke out in Alba’s favor.

“My heart goes out for this hard-working, honest ew Yorker that was doing his job in his place of business, where a person came i and wet behind the counter and attacked him,” Adams stated.

“The DA has a non-mandate, where we cannot dictate or mandate how he determines how he’s going to prosecute crimes,” he told reporters in lieu of directly criticizing Bragg. “That is up to the district attorney, and I’m not going to second-guess the district attorney for his actions.”

Bragg’s office claimed Alba was a flight risk because he’d planned a trip to the Dominican Republic, but the judge didn’t buy it and lowered Alba’s bail to $50,000 after a deal between his attorney and the prosecutors was struck: Alba is required to wear an ankle bracelet, surrender his passport, and can’t leave the five boroughs.

 

Melissa Fine
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