A Manhattan bodega worker charged with murder tried to avoid the confrontation that led to him being thrown behind bars after he fatally stabbed a customer, new video shows.
“Papa, I don’t want a problem, papa,” Jose Alba calmly tells an angry Austin Simon as the man walks behind the Hamilton Heights deli counter, the footage reveals.
The video obtained reveals for the first time the words exchanged between Alba and Simon before the fatal encounter that set off a public outcry about whether the clerk, who is facing murder charges, was trying to defend himself.
35-year-old Simon stormed into the Blue Moon convenience store on July 1, five minutes after his girlfriend tried to buy a bag of chips for her daughter and her electronic benefits card was declined. The woman contended Alba snatched the snack from the girl.
“Did you put food?” the girlfriend can be heard on video asking Alba about how he rang up the sale.
“OK, mama, let me do it another time. My God,” Alba says.
“There’s money on there,” she insists.
The footage, which was edited, then cuts to other customers, and the woman yells from off camera, “You can’t touch my daughter. Don’t snatch that out of my daughter, you f–king piece of shit!”
Alba is not seen in the footage taking away the chips.
The woman goes on to say “I’m gonna bring my n– down here and he gonna f–k you up. My n— is gonna come down here right now and f–k you up!”
Alba says “That’s not my fault, it’s not working.” He continues to ring up sales, telling one customer of the girlfriend, “She don’t have money.”
Another woman asked, “Did they take something from you?”
Alba replied, “No, I take it back.”
Then Simon can be seen walking in and going immediately behind the counter.
“What’s up with you? N—-r what is wrong with you?” he demands.
Alba who was in the middle of ringing up a woman, holds out his left arm as Simon approaches him. The female customer reaches across the counter as if she’s trying to get Simon’s attention.
The fatal stabbing was edited from the tape obtained by local news. But previously released video showed Simon push Alba into a chair before the two men start tussling and Simon was stabbed.
The video shows a bloody Simon laying on the bodega floor and his girlfriend crying out, “That was over $3. Three f–king dollars. He snatched something out of my daughter…please help him.”
NYPD officers arrive and led Alba away.
Alba, who suffered stab wounds in the attack allegedly inflicted by Simon’s girlfriend, was released from Rikers Island late Thursday after prosecutors agreed to lower his $250,000 bond.
“Sorry, I’m not talking to anybody. Talk to my lawyer,” Alba said Saturday through his door.
Francisco Marte, the founder of the Bodega and Small Business Group, said Alba was “very sorry for what happened.”
“He knew that his life was threatened. He was protecting himself…or we would be looking to bury him today,” Marte said.
35-year-old Osamah Aldhabyani who owns the bodega said Alba did not want to risk going back to work.
Aldhabyani said he was haunted by what happened and frightened about possible retaliation from Simon’s friends after, he claims, he saw two of them in a car outside the store.
“I’m scared for my life,” he said.
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