Wild video shows NYC bodega worker allegedly stabbing man to death
ByJorge Fitz-Gibbon
July 5, 2022 6:20pm
Updated
nypost.com
Surveillance video captures the moment a Manhattan bodega worker allegedly stabbed a customer to death after the enraged man came around the counter and attacked him over a bag of chips.
The worker is first seen on the shocking video tending to customers from behind the counter at the Hamilton Heights Grocery store on Broadway — when he is suddenly confronted by a younger man.
The customer appears to yell at the store clerk, before shoving him into a shelf, the clip shows.
After several moments, the worker reaches to the right, toward shelves displaying candy.
He pulls out a large knife and plunges it into the younger man’s neck and chest — which quickly becomes covered in blood, the footage shows.
The pair fall away from the camera view as blood begins to splatter on the man’s T-shirt — with the clerk then coming back into focus still holding the bloody knife.
The customer, identified as 37-year-old Austin Simon, was taken to Harlem Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The deadly beef reportedly started around 11 p.m. Friday when a woman entered the store with a child at Broadway and 139th Street to buy a bag of chips, according to police.
But police said the unidentified woman didn’t have enough cash for the snack and instead stormed out of the store — and summoned Simon.
That’s when Simon charged into the store, went behind the counter and confronted the store clerk, identified as Jose Alba, 51, leading to the deadly stabbing.
Police responding to reports of an assault at the bodega arrested Alba and charged him with murder and criminal possession of a weapon.
Alba was being held on Rikers Island on $250,000 bail Tuesday and is due back in Manhattan court on Thursday.
The incident was one of two fatal stabbings in the five boroughs overnight Friday.
Shortly after 3 a.m. Saturday, a 32-year-old man was stabbed and mortally wounded during a dispute at 98th Street and Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, police said.
The victim was taken to Elmhurst Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
His female companion suffered cuts to her left arm during the scuffle and was listed in stable condition at the hospital — as cops busted the alleged killer.
