Rep. Claudia Tenney on Monday said she's pleased to see New York City Mayor Eric Adams defending a city bodega worker who has been charged with murder after killing a man who had attacked him in his store.
"Adams is defending this guy who is just a small business owner with very little resources, who probably lives on very small margins and is being attacked by people," the New York Republican said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "These shootings continue. The violence continues.
"The murder rate continues, even though you know the left and the left-wing legacy media likes to focus on mass killings. We have mass killings every weekend in major cities, but the problem is, we don't recognize the right of self-defense."
District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his office have come under fire for charging the worker, Jose Alba, with second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon after the stabbing death. The New York Post reports that Alba grabbed a knife after Austin Simon, 35, charged behind the counter after Alba refused to sell a bag of potato chips to a woman who did not have enough cash.
According to the report, the customer left the store and returned with Simon, who confronted Alba. According to a video of the encounter, Alba grabbed a knife and allegedly stabbed Simon in the chest and neck, killing him.
"We're not coming up with a standard for indicting and prosecuting criminals because the criminals have no bail," said Tenney. "This is the New York state system. Nobody gets in trouble.
"You've got this guy who defended himself sitting in Rikers Island while others are set free, continuing to wreak havoc on these small business owners, and these are the most vulnerable people."
She added that it's "unfortunate" that such things happen, but they do when "you have a lawless society" and a cashless bail system.
"We tried as Republicans to go to Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York and the one-party rule in Albany and say, Let's at least give the judges dangerousness standards so that some of these people who have multiple crimes can be charged bail and put behind bars to prevent them from going right back out on the street and committing crimes."
She added that Adams should be pushing for charges to be dropped on Alba, but meanwhile, the state Legislature should admit its mistake and fix its laws.
"We can try to put pressure on from the federal side but this is a state law and it's a state issue," said Tenney. "I know there's a group of small business owners who have indicated that they're going to stand up to the state Legislature. But why isn't [the governor] holding a special election to protect small business owners? She held a special election to take away our gun rights."
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