Customers and co-workers of the Manhattan bodega clerk facing murder charges after he fatally stabbed a violent ex-con who attacked him in his store stuck by him Thursday, calling him “a good man.”
“That poor man does not deserve this,” Christopher C., who works at a nearby store in Hamilton Heights, said of 61-year-old bodega worker Jose Alba.
“It was self-defense and I do not care what anyone says,” he told The Post. “The cops need to do a deeper investigation because it’s not fair to him and his family. What if he was the one that lost his life? ”
Patricia Perez, a regular customer at the Broadway bodega, said Alba kept the peace at the store, including during the occasionally unruly night shift there.
“There’s actually been ridiculous things happening,” Perez said outside the grocery store. “I’m just really sad he’s going through this. He’s just defending himself. “
Alba, a father of three from the Dominican Republic, was behind the counter shortly after 11 pm Friday when 35-year-old Austin Simon, an ex-con who was still on parole for assaulting a police officer, stormed behind the counter and accosted him.
Wild video of the encounter shows Simon shoving the older man into the wall, then cutting him off as Alba tries to get past him – before he pulled a knife and stabbed Simon.
Simon was stabbed five times and was later pronounced dead.
Police and prosecutors later charged Alba, who had a clean criminal record, with second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon.
To his customers, Alba just did not belong in handcuffs.
“I do not understand why [he] is being charged with murder, ”said another regular who would only give his name as Juan, 37.“ Now, imagine if he did not stab the guy? What if the guy had a weapon too? The guy could have killed him too.
“It wasn’t going to end well either way,” he added.
Another local, who identified himself as Jeromy, said that, “I come to this deli all the time and that man is a very good man.”
“I know that man would never intentionally kill anyone,” Jeromy said of Alba. “Maybe he just did not feel safe. I do not know, but that man is such a great guy. This is unfortunate. ”
