Donald Trump Visits Site of Violent Assault in Manhattan Amid Criminal Trial: What You Should Know

NEW YORK – After a Manhattan courtroom, Donald Trump visited the Hamilton Heights warehouse where a man was stabbed to death in 2022, a radical turn for the former president as he tries to become a criminal defendant and a Republican opponent’s claim to blame the President. Joe Biden for the crime.

Trump stopped by Sanaa Convenient Store, a small grocery store that sells chips, soda and other snacks. Trump advisers said the former president and presumptive Republican nominee chose the store because it was the site of a violent assault on an employee, a case that drew public criticism of the district attorney who now being prosecuted.

The trip was Trump’s first campaign appearance since the start of his criminal trial over money, making the Republican nominee the first vice president in US history to was tried criminally.

Trump will be confined to the courtroom most days, severely limiting his movements and ability to campaign, fundraise and make calls, unlike Biden, who campaigned on Tuesday in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state. Trump advisers have responded by planning rallies and other political events on weekends and Wednesdays, the only day of the week when the court is not supposed to be in session. Plans also include more local appearances that Trump can make each day after court recess.

For months, Trump has attacked Democratic-run cities, saying they are crime-ridden and overrun by immigrants who have crossed the U.S. border. -Mexico, even as violent crime has declined in the United States. With his local campaign stop in Harlem, Trump mixed that familiar, if often exaggerated, message with his promise to make a big effort to win his home state despite his strong Democratic leanings.

“They want law and order … they get robbed every week,” Trump said of New York businesses, as he tried to compare their prosecutors to what happens on the streets of New York “Do you know where the crime is? It’s in the cellars.”

Despite Trump’s rhetoric, FBI statistics show that violent crime decreased nationally in 2023 after spikes from the COVID era that began in 2020, when Trump was president. Crime has also decreased in New York City since the peak of the pandemic.

However, in July 2022, José Alba, an employee at the store that Trump visited in Hamilton Heights, a predominantly Hispanic section of Harlem, was attacked by 35-year-old Austin Simon. The ensuing altercation, which was caught on surveillance video, ended with Alba fatally stabbing Simon. Alba, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, was arrested and charged with murder, but the Manhattan district attorney dropped the charges within weeks, saying they could not prove Alba was not engaged in self-defense.

Before her arrival, the Trump campaign released materials to reporters criticizing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for his handling of the stabbing case, including the weeks Scott spent in jail at Rikers Island. Bragg heads the office that is now prosecuting Trump.

Bragg’s office responded Tuesday after news of Trump’s plans emerged.

Simón’s death and the Alba case “were resolved almost two years ago and the charges were dismissed after a thorough investigation,” according to the statement. “District Attorney Bragg’s top priority is to fight the -combating violent crime and the office has been working hand in hand with the NYPD to reduce overall crime in Manhattan.

Bragg’s office cited statistics showing a double-digit drop in murders and shootings in Manhattan over the past two years.

The Trump campaign also pointed to the convenience store shutdown as a place to increase consumer prices during the Biden presidency. However, Trump skipped those talking points and focused on his descriptions of crime in New York and said the justice system allows criminals to go free.

“They don’t build them, they go after Trump,” he said.

The former president’s effort in Harlem confirms his intention to campaign in his home state, even though New York is still overwhelmingly Democratic. In 2020, Biden won over 60% of the vote in the state and won even larger margins in New York City. Trump insists he can win New York at least in November, and has held rallies in the South Bronx and Queens, where the former was born and raised. president, and even at Madison Square Garden.

“I might rent Madison Square Garden,” he said in an interview with Breitbart News. “That’s the belly of the beast, isn’t it?”

It would be too expensive a proposition, especially since his campaign has been working to save money while facing a fundraising gap with Biden.

“We’re going to make a big play for New York,” Trump said Tuesday, as part of his pledge to get more states involved.

At least Trump, who has long been famous to New Yorkers, showed that he can still turn heads in the city.

During the evening, the crowd around the winery grew to half a dozen as word spread of Trump’s upcoming visit. Barricades were set up on Broadway between 139th and 140th streets before Trump’s appearance. The patio of the Mexican restaurant next door was full of curious onlookers, and employees from a hair salon on the other side gathered by the open door.

“Daddy Trump is coming. Yes!” said a passer-by before the former president arrived.

When Trump arrived, children climbed scaffolding around nearby buildings to get a better view. Trump shook hands with people behind police barricades before entering the warehouse, where plexiglass separates customers from the cash register.

“I love this city,” Trump told reporters after leaving the store. “Let’s fix New York.”

Trump has argued that the influx of immigrants to the city, where he grew his real estate empire and became a tabloid, has made New Yorkers more willing to vote. for him since his 2020 loss to Biden. The town has been struggling to house the new arrivals, keeping many in the town’s hotels.

“I think we have a chance. New York has changed a lot in the last two years,” he recently told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo. “People in New York are angry. People who would never have voted for me because I’m a Republican… I think they’re going to vote for me .'”

On Tuesday he doubled down on that stance, claiming that immigrants “come from jails, prisons and mental institutions,” though there is no evidence to support that claim, recalling his speech in in 2015 to launch his first presidential campaign.

Trump’s prospects will depend on voters like Lesandra Carrión, a 47-year-old woman who lives in the neighborhood and came out to see the former president when she learned that he might be visiting.

He said that he does not agree with everything that Trump says or does, but he said that “he is telling the truth.” ” Carrión cited the increase in the migrant population and the lack of city resources. “I think he will make a difference,” she said of Trump.

As for his troubles at the courthouse on Manhattan’s southern tip, Carrión was oblivious. “He’s going to pass on that,” she said. “We all make mistakes at the end of the day. But he is the truth and the light. I feel that God is there.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a former Trump ally, predicted Monday that Trump will get “the best of this test” in New York. “The Democrats in New York, the judge and everybody, are very sorry,” he said.

However, not everyone agreed on Tuesday.

Steven Kopstein, a 63-year-old resident, expressed his surprise at Trump’s visit and occasionally mocked Trump supporters as he walked through the crowd with his dog. his

“You are not welcome here,” Kopstein said of Trump, adding that it is ironic that the former president is engaging in crime just after spending the day at the table of a “He’s done a lot to hurt immigrants and this neighborhood is full of them. I just don’t get it.”