I'm currently at home and thus forced to learn about all the latest right media trends on Fox which plays all day.
In short, the story is that the girlfriend of the victim, Austin Simon, had a declined transaction. She went and got her boyfriend for whatever reason, he had some kind of confrontation with the man at the counter, Jose Alba, and Simon was eventually stabbed to death.
I've seen this mostly covered by conservative outlets and "JusticePorn" type social media, and they're all basically supporting the Alba. Also including Eric Adams, who has criticized the decision to charge the guy with murder - NYT.
I linked the most complete video I could find of the incident. To me, it looks like Alba is shoved once by Simon pretty hard, and he then yells at him for a bit before pulling him up from the chair he was shoved into and looks like he's going to march him out in front of the counter, which is the point at which Alba grabs the knife, whips around, and stabs him: at least 5 times according to reports and you can see a stab to the neck in the video.
Additionally, from the NYT article, according to Alba, Simon "had demanded that he 'come apologize to the girl,'" which I think tracks with leading him out from behind the counter maybe. Simon also did not have a weapon.
To me, this seems like a disproportionate response, and I can see why he would be charged, but I wanted to know other's thoughts. I feel like you shouldn't be able to kill people over relatively minor altercations when your life isn't immediately threatened but that's just me lol.
If you attack someone weaker than you, anything they do to become stronger than you is valid in my opinion. Cornering an old man is assaulting the weakest demographic you can find in the hope that they can't fight back. The old man tried to get away and was restrained from doing so prompting the stabbing. Fuck around and find out.
The criminal charge is absurd to me. It's clear self-defense after he's grabbed.
I mean I agree it's definitely fucked up to harass an older person just doing their job like that, but like, going straight to knife in the neck over it? Just feels bad to me. I'm not much of a fighter though and I've never really been in a situation like that.
i mean, imagine if it was an elderly woman. would that color your opinion?
im tiny as fuck and have been attacked by people way bigger than me, if you dont go for the incredible violence option you will have terrible things happen to you. being a short elderly person of any gender vs. a tall young person thats backing you into a corner is not gonna lead to good things, especially with how quick elderly people can break bones. remember that protest video of that old guy getting shoved over by police? he was hospitalized for a month or so and was deaf in a ear or something
i agree that someone shouldnt be murdered over petty theft, but someone shouldnt be threatened with potential extreme violence in the commission of petty theft either. thieves should remember that
So, I know the post I linked calls him a robber, but from what I've read the confrontation was over the clerk taking back some item from his girlfriend's daughter after her EBT card was declined. You can also see Simon close the cash register in the video, he didn't have a weapon, and it just generally doesn't seem like his intent was to rob him and the clerk himself said that what Simon wanted was an apology, not that I agree with his method of getting one.
I definitely understand the fear here. He doesn't know the guy who's yelling at him or his intentions, and he's being rough. And as others here have said, if you choose to respond to that aggression with force like the clerk here did, it's difficult to control where it ends. I guess I just feel like the clerk shouldn't have escalated it further; give the guy what he wants and be done with it.
I'm empathetic to the clerk though and I don't think he should do 25 years or whatever for murder over this.
i dont consider the clerk to have escalated anything. the guy escalated the situation into a physical confrontation over something trivial like a card being declined. if you really need food, just take it and leave.
If he threw a punch it would get him killed. If he threatened with a knife, he doesn't have the space and would be killed. If he threatened without a knife, he'll be killed. Trying to escape is his attempt at deescalation and it was denied. The assaulter chose his victim and he chose wrong. Vulnerable people with the means to defend themselves is a thing I support in general and especially when someone a third of your age is already committing to that degree of violence against you.
Have you ever been in a fight? Like a real fight with a stranger that you don't know? Things happen very, very fast. You don't have time to do a lot of critical thinking, especially when someone already has control over you and is about to do who knows what. You have time to react, and you can and should use overwhelming violence to protect yourself. The legal idea of "proportionate response" is usually nonsense. There's no proportionate response to being grabbed by someone bigger than you. They could easily bounce your head off the pavement until you died. And you have no idea of knowing whether they mean to hurt your or just scare the shit out of you. You have to assume the worst.
This isn't to say you should jump straight to killing people; If you can you should deescalate or try to run away. But a lot of times that isn't a realistic option - There's no where to run, or you're surrounded, or someone is obviously faster than you.
I'm pretty surprised in this thread by how many responses could have been written by Massad Ayoub. Or any Texan.
Clear self defense IMO. I think a lot of the /r/justiceserved types would gladly kill anyone who commits any robbery, and I don't subscribe to that view - but in the moment where a person is defending themselves it's unreasonable to expect them to also be able to strike with nonlethal precision. In this case the only question is whether or not it's reasonable for the store owner to have been fearing for their life, and in the situation I see on that video you don't know if being shoved is the limit of the violence the robber is planning to do or if they are going to keep escalating, so it seems reasonable to me to fear for your life when he grabs you and starts pulling/leading you around.
I'm not going to watch the video again, but it seemed like he was cornered in a confined space, iirc.
Not sure what an older, weaker person is supposed to do to get out of that situation other than anything.
The jurisprudence in many northeastern states requires you to call the police and do nothing. If some gangster is going to beat you into a bloody pulp, that's just what is going to happen. I think it's Connecticut where you they expect you to jump out the window and run down the street if there's an intruder in your house at night.
And never mind that you might not be good at running. God forbid you're fat or old or disabled and have to fight for your life.
I think its self defense, pretty clearly. The old guy didn't really know what was going to happen when the guy was pulling him out of his Bodega. That being said, we don't have audio.
This is just a fucked situation though that could have been avoided if the patron just took a step back and took a breather. Not worth getting worked up over a declined credit card or whatever. But self defense here is justified and the manner of that defense isn't really the subject when the victim was in, what they assessed, a life threatening situation
going only from the linked video, seemed pretty fair play? Dude was passive up til the point he was getting marched out of there when he grabbed the knife. Didn't deserve to die, but definitely overstepped the uh bounds.
Sucks, but like, dont fuck with retail workers? Idk not an adjudicator situation sucks ETAH?
Thinking further idk about local laws around weapons and workplaces but i dont think that'd fly where I am
Possible the cashier has been almost hurt/killed before as well with his job, it's a dangerous fucking job, so PTSDing and grabbing a knife isn't even that surprising if that was the case
I could be paranoid/litigious/devils-advocate-y here but I could see grounds for manslaughter if the knife wouldn't have otherwise been reasonably required to be there. Like, for a retail employee particularly there's safety knives/box cutters that were they the weapon used here may not have had such lethal effect.
It’s not illegal to carry a pocket knife.
It is in New York. I'm not sure if that's a law or just what the police have decided, but carrying a knife in NYC is a very bad idea.
That's a really bad metric. The police are notorious for using the gang designation for racist political purposes and to justify repression.
I think the pro worker position would be that someone stuck in a wage slave position shouldn’t have to accept physical abuse and intimidation from customers. Personally, I think he was a fool for not just giving them the chips.
In an ideal world, neither party was in this situation. Sure, things could have been much better, the clerk is an older guy though and getting assaulted and kidnapped.
There were a million moments that led up to that guy getting stabbed and that guy stabbing him, and it still happened. In my mind at least, it was essentially inevitable that this guy would have a deadly altercation at some point with someone (in this shit ass country). Maybe an unstoppable dickhead met an immovable asshole, it's a relatively short clip with no audio, but one party definitely started the violence and had a massive physical one up. If it were an old guy trying to assault a younger, bigger cashier, this probably never would've escalated, but in this specific situation I think the cashier isn't liable. I'm pretty sure he didn't want to stab someone to death, and there's a good chance he didn't have to, but the deceased didn't give him the time or space to know that. This wasn't someone running away who got shot in the back, he was invading and escalating until he got stabbed.
I'm going to side with the worker. I think this is a great example of why we should always carry pepper spray.
Don't put your hands on anyone. No one knows what your intent is so just don't touch people. It's that simple to not end up in this situation. The shove alone could have injured or killed the guy. If I was the clerk I would for sure have responded the same.
