Bodega Workers, Republican Politicians Call for Stand-Your-Ground Laws in New York

Prominent New Yorkers — including the Republican candidate for governor, Representative Lee Zeldin — are calling for reforms to the state’s self-defense laws after murder charges were filed against a New Yorker who says he was acting in self-defense.A bodega employee, Jose Alba, allegedly stabbed Austin Simon to death on July 1. Mr. Alba is claiming it was in self-defense. In footage caught on the store’s security camera, Simon went behind the counter of the store and cornered Mr. Alba after his girlfriend’s electronic benefit transfer card was declined. The district attorney’s office said Simon was unarmed during the altercation.Mr. Alba is being charged with second-degree murder, implying intentional homicide. His supporters, though, say the charges do not account for self-defense as a motivation because of New York’s murky laws on the issue. The current law protects self-defense at home but imposes “a duty to retreat” in incidents outside the home. “New York’s self-defense laws should be strengthened,” Mr. Zeldin’s campaign told the Sun. “Currently you have a duty to retreat from your business when you’re in danger and can only use self-defense if that doesn’t work, but the way the statute is written leaves it up to serious interpretation as to whether you’ve retreated enough.”Mr. Zeldin’s campaign said the candidate supports a bill in the New York State senate that would eliminate the “duty to retreat” from state law, making New York a “stand-your-ground” state. Currently 38 states have stand-your-ground laws that allow people to use deadly force in self-defense.The legislation was introduced in January by a Republican state senator, George Borrello, who called Mr. Alba’s case “a tragic example” of why such a law is necessary. Mr. Borrello said the legislation is unlikely to pass in the current state senate but he is more optimistic about its passage in the next term, after new electoral maps — more favorable to Republicans — are implemented.Governor Hochul, whom Mr. Zeldin is running against, has not commented on the charges against Mr. Alba or on Mr. Borello’s bill. Mr. Zeldin has called on the governor to fire the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, over the charges. Ms. Hochul’s office did not respond to requests for comment.An organization of bodega employees and owners, the United Bodegas of America, has organized in support of Mr. Alba and has spoken publicly in favor of a change in the state law. “What Jose Alba did was stand his ground,” a spokesman for the United Bodegas of America, Fernando Mateo, said. “And that’s the only reason why he is alive today. If he did not stand his ground, he would have been dead.”Mr. Mateo said his organization supports implementing stand-your-ground laws in New York. Criminals, he said, should know that if they commit a crime against someone, “that someone could end [their] life.”“We don’t want any bodega owner to succumb to someone’s beatings,” Mr. Mateo said. “In essence, stand-your-ground sends a very clear message — not to your general population, but the criminals that are out there.” The founder of the Guardian Angels, Curtis Sliwa, also supports “stand-your-ground” laws. “Of course, there should be a provision that allows you to stand and defend yourself, your property, and people,” Mr. Sliwa, a Republican who has run for mayor, said. Mr. Sliwa said he faced similar situations when he managed a McDonald’s restaurant in the Bronx in the late 1970s.“Everyone knew the rule: don’t come over the counter,” Mr. Sliwa said. “The way I used to handle it at McDonald’s … is that if you came over the counter, you got a beat down and then I drag you in the back and lock you in the freezer until the cops came, which could take two to three hours.”He acknowledged that today such actions would land him in jail, like Mr. Alba. The state law was the same back then, Mr. Sliwa said, but there were too few police officers to enforce it. The current laws and enforcement, he said, under which people can be tried for self-defense, have made people “hesitant” to fight back when threatened. He also called for loosening handgun restrictions in the city.“If Jose Alba had access to a handgun, and he had pointed it at this predator, there’s a very good chance that predator would have run out of the store,” Mr. Sliwa said. He claimed that even given the current restrictions on gun ownership in New York, which the state is trying to preserve following a recent Supreme Court ruling against, many bodega owners carry such weapons.“I’ve been in many bodegas in which they not only have a knife, a stick, or a pipe, but they have an illegal handgun,” Mr. Sliwa said. “And everybody knows, you go in there, you could end up with lead poisoning. It’s the code of the streets.”Mr. Mateo said he tried to organize bodega employees to register for handgun permits en masse in 2010, but the effort never took off “because there was a lot of opposition.”He and other representatives of the United Bodegas of America met with the district attorney this morning, as part of an effort to get the charges against Mr. Alba dropped.In a press conference following the meeting, Mr. Mateo was optimistic about Mr. Alba’s case.He called the meeting “very, very good” and reported that the district attorney, Mr. Bragg, said the charges could be dropped pending the ongoing investigation.___________Correction: Austin Simon’s girlfriend’s electronic benefit transfer card was declined at the bodega in which Simon was subsequently stabbed. An earlier edition misstated the type of card used.

Bodega Workers, Republican Politicians Call for Stand-Your-Ground Laws in New York

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