Warehouse homicide: Latino employee cleared of charges in deadly fight over fries in New York

Photo: Fernando Martínez / Impremedia

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Murder charges will be dropped Joseph Alba, Harlem (NYC) warehouse worker accused of fatally stabbing ex-con who attacked him behind the counterManhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg requested this morning to the judge handling the controversial case.

dawn, employee Dominican 61 years old, always claimed to have acted in self-defense when he stabbed Austin Simon (35) inside the “Blue Moon” warehouse on the night of July 1. His arrest caused controversy from the beginning, and merchants and Mayor Eric Adams had advocated for himin the midst of a controversy over the growing insecurity in New York stores and warehouses.

After the deadly fight, Alba was sent to Rikers Island, from where he was able to leave five days later, after his initial bail was lowered from $250,000 to $50,000a figure that his family was able to pay with the help of his boss.

Mayor Adams came to Alba’s defense, saying he was “doing his job and someone aggressively went behind the counter to attack him,” he recalled. Daily News.

The confrontation was captured by two separate cameras. Something puerile soon escalated to deadly violence: Alba first refused to allow a client to use her benefits card to pay for a bag of chips for her 10-year-old daughter. Annoyed, the woman called Simon, her supposed boyfriend, who attacked the employee and ended up fatally stabbed in the confrontation. In response, the unidentified adult also stabbed Alba.

The dramatic footage showed Alba trying to get away from Simon after being shoved, then repeatedly plunging a knife into his neck and torso as the two grappled with each other.

Simon was taken to Harlem Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, with wounds on the chest and one on the neck. He had prior arrests, including for robbery and assault, and served time in state prison in 2016 for assaulting a police officer. It was the first of two stabbing homicides recorded that night in the city.

Alba broke her silence about the incident last week, telling the press that she was deeply repentant and regretted his actions. It is not a new situation. In New York, the interior and surroundings of warehouses are frequently crime scenes, both robberies and homicides. Last Sunday night, two tourists mother and daughter, visitors from Texas, were hit by stray bullets inside a warehouse in the Bronx.

Until the beginning of July, there had been reports 195 NYC warehouse robberies in 2022, the police said. At that point in 2021, only 75 such robberies had been reported. “The numbers are even higher. The numbers are not reported.warned Frank García, president of the National Association of State Chambers of Commerce (NASC). According to him, some owners do not report all crimes because have lost confidence in the police and the criminal justice system In New York.

attacks are common to employees, customers and neighbors. in January, A woman and her pit bull dog were killed in a shooting inside a Brooklyn grocery store. At the end of November, an 18-year-old died after being shot several timesbeing a client of a warehouse in Staten Island (NYC). And in October, a Immigrant store clerk stabbed to death in East Harlem, in an apparent argument over 50 cents off the price of a cigarette.

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