-Tamara’Shanay-

Cousins!

Recent reports from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office confirmed that the Bodega worker involved in the self defense incident turned deadly has been cleared of all charges!

According to Pix 11 news a judge approved a motion to dismiss the murder charge against Jose Alba, 61 earlier this afternoon.

As we previously reported an altercation erupted earlier this month on July 1 within Hamilton Heights after a woman came into the store with her 10-year-old daughter, trying to purchase potato chips with her food stamp card. Prosecutors said when the woman’s card declined, bodega worker Jose reached over the counter, grabbed her hand, and yanked the chips away.

https://youtu.be/GD2bZ9UUSQQ

In response the woman stated she was going to get her boyfriend. Austin Simons, 35, entered the store shortly and proceeded to get into a verbal dispute with Jose. According to NBC, he then grabbed him by the collar to lift him out of the chair and force him out of the employee-only section to apologize to the girl.

As Simon held him by the neck, Alba grabbed a knife from the shelf beside the counter and repeatedly stabbed Simon as the two struggled. Alba was ultimately arrested. Jose stabbed him three times — in the heart, lung and jugular vein. He spent almost a week at Riker’s Island with his bail set at a quarter of a million dollars.

“We are so happy,” said Francisco Marte of the Bodega & Small Business Association. “When Alvin Bragg called me to tell me about the case, I felt like he gave us the respect we deserve.”

“This was clearly not a murder case in every sense of the word,” David Schwartz, the director of the New York Association of Grocery Stores.