Remember the case of Jose Alba? He was the New York bodega clerk who defended himself with a knife against against a man who came behind the store’s counter and attacked him. The confrontation was caught on video. The attacker died and Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg tossed Alba into a cell on Rikers Island and then charged him with murder.
That brought a rain of condemnation down on Bragg from everyone in New York City from the average guy on the street up to and including Mayor Eric Adams. No one could believe that the man who entered office by downgrading felonies to misdemeanors and refusing to enforce huge portions of the criminal code decided to charge a man with murder for clearly defending himself.
Bragg, being the political creature he is, eventually managed to read the room and dropped the charges against Alba. Now, however, he’s decided to pick on another working class victim who successfully defended himself, this time with a gun.
A 57-year-old parking garage attendant, Moussa Diarra, confronted a thief yesterday and was shot twice. He still managed to wrestle the gun away from his attacker and returned fire. That has resulted in charges of attempted murder, assault and — get this — criminal possession of a weapon.
From the New York Post . . .
The charges against Diarra sparked outrage — and recalled the case of Manhattan bodega clerk Jose Alba, who was charged with murder after a fatal July 1 confrontation in his store with an angry customer who came behind his counter and accosted him.
Family friend Mariame Diarra, who is not related to the attendant, slammed the decision to hit the married dad of two with charges.
“That’s self-defense. The guy tried to rob his business. Why DA want to charge him with attempted murder?” she told The Post. “He’s there for security. That’s literally his job, to defend his business. … He takes his job seriously. … Attempted murder charge has no place there. He [robber] came to find him at his job with his gun, he [Diarra] has to defend himself.”
An individual who works nearby the garage, which is across from Moynihan Train Station, was also incredulous.
“You are kidding. That’s an April fool day joke, right?” they asked of the charges against Diarra, adding, “How can a hardworking man get arrested for defending himself?”
That’s a question a lot of New Yorkers are asking about the case. Cops included.
One cop who heard of the attempted murder charge against the parking garage worker snarled, “People like Alvin Bragg have made this city unsafe and this worker is a victim defending himself.”
The accused thief would have been better off if he stuck to stealing, another officer quipped.
“The ironic thing is if he would have just robbed the garage and got caught, Bragg would have let him go, but now he wants to charge both of them,” the officer said.
The attacker, 59-year-old Charles Rhodie, has been charged with attempted murder, assault, criminal possession of a weapon and burglary.
DA Bragg doesn’t seem to have really mastered the concept of prosecutorial discretion. No matter what the technical aspects of the law may be surrounding the Diarra incident, charging a wounded man — he was shot in the stomach and the ear — who just disarmed his attacker seems more than a little politically ham-handed, especially given Bragg’s problematic record where upholding the law is concerned.
We’re setting the over-under for the number of days until Bragg once again buckles under public pressure and drops the charges against Diarra at 4½ days. In the mean time, stay tuned.