VIDEO: Manhattan Bodega Clerk Sues Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, City and Police for Racial Discrimination After He Was Jailed for Killing Black Man Who Attacked Him In Store
A Hispanic bodega worker, Jose Alba, is suing the Manhattan District Attorney and the New York Police Department for racial discrimination. Alba claims that he was unfairly charged with murder for defending himself during an attack at the store where he worked.
He alleges that the District Attorney’s “racial equity” initiative favored Black individuals over others in criminal cases, which had a negative impact on him.
In a lawsuit obtained by Atlanta Black Star and filed on Sept. 29 in a Manhattan federal court, the city of New York, Detective William Garcia, New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Department of Correction Commissioner Louis Molina, and twenty unidentified police officers are named as defendants.
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He claims he was a victim of an illegal seizure, false arrest, malicious prosecution, violation of his equal protection rights, violation of his due process and fair trial rights, racial discrimination, failure to intervene, and more assertions tied to his imprisonment.
According to Alba’s complaint, a Black man named Austin Simon, who had a criminal record, violently attacked him while he was working at the Blue Moon bodega on July 1, 2022.
Simon’s girlfriend, Tina Lee, instigated the fight after she and the clerk got into an argument because her EBT card declined after she tried to purchase a bag of potato chips. The woman accused the clerk of grabbing her daughter’s hand to take back the snack.
She told Alba she was going to get Simon to come and beat him up. The boyfriend came into the store seemingly with the intent to cause “deadly harm and serious physical injury” to the 61-year-old Alba. The confrontation became violent, with Alba seeing Lee approaching with a “long knife” after he had already been knocked over by Simon. He was terrified.
In self-defense against Simon and Lee, who also stabbed Alba during the confrontation, the senior resorted to fatally stabbing the 35-year-old Black man.
The bodega clerk was arrested and charged with murder in the second degree despite having no criminal history or arrest record. The lawsuit also says that stabbed-up Alba was taken to the 30th Precinct instead of the hospital.
The complaint argues that Bragg may have intended to be progressive in how his office approached justice, but it was an epic fail since “Simon and Lee were the initial aggressors” and he was the party “arrested, incarcerated, and wrongfully prosecuted.”
Alba couldn’t afford the initial $500,000 bond, leading to him being locked up at Rikers Island, where he endured harsh conditions and was placed at risk for COVID-19. The bail was later reduced to $250,000 by a judge, and he was finally released after six days when prosecutors set it at $50,000.
The charges were ultimately dropped on July 19 because Bragg came to admit he did not have enough evidence to prove Alba “was not justified in his use of deadly physical force.”
The lawsuit alleges that Bragg subjected Alba to suffering at Rikers Island because Alba, who is not Black, killed someone who was. Bragg also failed to charge Alba with a lesser crime, like manslaughter, at his arraignment, which could have made his bail a feasible amount for him to make. This was done despite Alba being a non-flight-risk senior citizen.
“While in theory, Bragg’s ‘racial equity’ policies are a well-intentioned attempt by him to implement even-handed justice, the means and methods employed by Bragg have instead had an opposite effect and resulted in discrimination against certain defendants based on race,” the claim reads before asserting Alba’s civil rights were violated by all of the defendants.
Lawyers for Alba are asking for a trial by jury and seeking on behalf of their client compensatory and punitive damages.
The Manhattan DA’s office has declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Spokespersons for the DOC and NYPD referred comment requests to the city Law Department, which stated, “The City will review the case when served and respond accordingly.”