Fury at woke Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for prosecuting hardworking bodega employee, 62, who stabbed career criminal to death in self defense: GoFundMe REMOVES the man's $20k legal fund as he languishes in Riker's on $250,000 bond Fury over prosecution of 'hard working' NYC bodega employee | Daily Mail Online, July 7, 2022 Absolutely incredible, the victim is in jail for defending himself and has a high bail. But wait, the real criminals get zero bail. - The girlfriend of Austin Simon girlfriend couldn't afford a bag of potato chips in the Harlem bodega where Jose Alba worked as an employee - The employee, Alba, tried to reclaim the chips, but she pulled a knife out of her purse then called her boyfriend for back-up - Austin Simon then confronted Alba in the store and Alba stabbed him in self-defense - Simon later died in the hospital, and Alba was arrested on murder charges - Simon was a 37-year-old ex-con, and African American. Jose Alba was 62 years old and had no prior criminal record. - Bragg's office routinely awards no or low cash bail to violent offenders in NYC, but not in this case. She asked the judge to set bail at $500,000. The judge set it at $250,000. - Alba's family started an internet GoFundMe campaign account for his defense, but the account was removed by GoFundMe after raising $20,000. (It's believed the account was suspended due to the social politics surrounding Black Lives Matter, with black persons who get attacked with excessive force while committing crimes viewed as the victims) I warned people this could happen. Conservatives did not believe me because it sounded too crazy to them, was too hard to imagine it could be happening as a phenomena. People being arrested and prosecuted for using violent force in situations which, to all of us, are obviously self defense. According to many of those on the Progressive Left, when a customer steals a bag of chips and then pulls out a knife, the store owner should simply let them escape and walk out the door. "A life is not worth a bag of chips", they will tell you. But then there's basically no way to legally stop store thieves. The store owner just has to let people steal all his merchandise and hope that police are sometimes able to eventually catch some of the thieves. (Even though in many of these big cities the police totally aren't interested in solving these low level crimes) Due to release of the news story about what happened, there is now a growing campaign to Free Jose Alba amid fury at District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The case hasn't yet gone to a grand jury, but here's another trick prosecutors often use: They create a misleading impression to convince the grand jury to vote how the prosecutor wants. It can involve selective presentation of the facts, trying to characterize the facts as something, or painting a misleading picture and twisting the facts. Many people don't realize that the defendant, even if they have already been arrested, does not get to go to the grand jury hearing, the defendant's lawyer does not get to go to the hearing or put up any defense to counter what the prosecutor has said, and even more shocking, the defendant often never even gets to find out exactly what the prosecutor said at that hearing. What a great opportunity for a prosecutor to twist the facts when the person being arrested and the public will never even get to find out what they said.
Tucker Carlson covered this story with plenty of commentary. He also identified the names of the GoFundMe executives responsible: Tim Cadogan (CEO), Juan Benitez (President), Margaret Richardson (Chief Corporate Affairs Officer). Tucker Carlson: Self-defense is the cornerstone of all liberty | Fox News, July 7, 2022 Tucker then compares this story to the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, where they openly made the claim that he did not have the right to use self defense. "During Rittenhouse's trial, one prosecutor, James Krause, told the jury that Rittenhouse should have allowed the thugs to beat him. 'Everyone takes a beating sometimes', Krause said. Another prosecutor, Thomas Binger, said in the closing arguments, 'They have to convince you, that Joseph Rosenbaum, was going to take that gun and use it on the defendant, because they know you can't claim self defense against an unarmed man like this. You lose the right to self defense when you're the one who brought the gun.' " He explains it is part of a continuing pattern of a war on the right to self defense.
Update: Jose Alba is now trying to sue the prosecutor. The store clerk spent six nights in lockup before prosecutors in District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office agreed to lower his $250,000 bail. The second-degree murder charges were dropped by the DA on July 19 amid extensive media coverage and public outrage over the case. He is also trying to sue the city Health and Hospitals Corporation, claiming that during his time in jail at Rikers, he was not given proper medical treatment for his stab wounds, one of which became infected. Alba claims that from start to finish, his case was mishandled, beginning when police arrived in Hamilton Heights and failed to take witness statements, including from himself. Instead, the police "relied solely on the incredible word" of Simon's girlfriend, Tina Lee, who stabbed Alba in the melee.
