As soon as his New York trial court proceedings were finished for the day, Donald Trump proceeded to visit a Manhattan bodega, Blue Moon Convenient Store, where its store clerk, Jose Alba, killed an ex-convict, Austin Simon, in self-defense after he jumped on the store’s counter in an attempt to rob the bodega on July 20, 2022.
Instead, the Manhattan police locked up Alba for days in Rikers Island until the bail amount was reduced to $250,000. Bodega owners lambasted Manhattan District Attorney General Alvin Bragg, thus forcing him to drop charges against the store clerk. Prosecutors concluded that they could not “prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was not justified in his use of deadly physical force.”
The people of Harlem welcomed Trump warmly while chanting: “Four more years!” and “USA! USA! USA!” while the children were cheering, “I love you, Trump!”
Maad Ahmed, the store’s owner, and Francisco Marte, founder of the Bodega and Small Business Association, representing bodegas in New York and slammed Bragg for his charges against Alba, met Trump as he arrived in Harlem.
Speaking with the reporters, Trump remarked: “This is a very exciting time for me because the Bodegas Association invited me – I respect them and they respect me. They want law and order, they have a lot of crime, tremendous crime, their stores are being robbed.”
“There’s never been a judge so conflicted as this [in this case], it’s ridiculous. There’s no crime,” the former president added.
“You know where the crime is? In the bodegas… These people have to be treated fairly, the bodegas, every week they’re being robbed two or three times, it’s crazy. And you know what, the police can do it, they can stop it but they have to be allowed to do their job.”
Trump also highlighted that the crimes in New York have worsened over the past years and pledged to “straighten out” the city if he returns to the White House.”
‘Number one, we have to stop crime.
‘We have to let the police do their job, they have to be given back their authority,’ he said, adding that his election campaign is ‘making a big play for New York.’
The Republican presumptive nominee also hit Bragg, who, like Letitia James, aims to “get Trump” instead of going for actual criminals.
“He goes after guys like Trump who did nothing wrong.”
“They know there are hundreds of murders all over the city, they know who they are, they don’t pick them up, they go after Trump.”
Trump further said, “The African American community is now not getting jobs, the migrants are taking their jobs that are here illegally,’ Trump continued. ‘Hispanics are not getting jobs.”
“You have massive numbers of terrorists coming into our country, all because of Biden.”
