Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office dropped an attempted murder charge on a garage security worker who disarmed and shot an alleged thief after the suspect fired two bullets at the worker when confronted for peering into parked vehicles.
The incident occurred around 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning, when authorities said overnight security guard Moussa Diarra, 57, approached a man peering into cars on the second floor of the West 31st Street garage and requested to look inside his bag on suspicion of theft, The New York Post reported.
The suspect, who police identified as Charles Rhodie, 59, allegedly pulled out a gun and shot Diarra twice — one bullet struck him in the stomach, and the other grazed his ear — as the two men wrestled for control of the firearm. Sources told The Post that Diarra allegedly gained possession of the firearm and shot Rhodie in the chest.
Both men were transported to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition and were placed in custody pending an ongoing investigation. Before Bragg’s office dropped Diarra’s attempted murder charge, authorities also initially hit the security guard work with charges of assault and criminal possession of a weapon.
Authorities also charged Rhodie with attempted murder, assault, and criminal possession of a weapon, as well as burglary.
However, following an uproar of news reports about the altercation, a spokesperson for Bragg’s office told local media prosecutors would back off Diarra in the bloody Saturday morning clash, pending further investigation, adding prosecutors are still pursuing charges against Rhodie.
One cop who heard of the initial charge against the parking garage worker told The New York Post, “people like Alvin Bragg have made this city unsafe, and this worker is a victim defending himself.”
Critics of Bragg, who assumed office in January 2022, have slammed the district attorney for creating an unsafe city where criminals feel emboldened and law-abiding citizens are weakened.
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Within a month of taking office, Bragg faced backlash from police officers, small business owners, and public officials over a memo that instructed prosecutors to avoid seeking jail time for certain crimes including robbery, assault and gun possession.
His office later updated the memo, stating the the document had been “a source of confusion, rather than clarity,” and emphasized that it was up to the office’s prosecutors to determine how best to handle individual cases, according to The New York Times.
“You were hired for your keen judgment, and I want you to use that judgment — and experience — in every case,” he said.
Crime statistics reported by The Daily Mail, data from last year showed rapes, robberies, and assaults are all up after hitting high numbers the city has not experienced in decades. The outlet reported rape increased by 7%, robberies spiked up to 20%, and assaults and theft throughout the city ranged from 12% to 25%
A similar incident to Diarra’s charges occurred last year when authorities charged Manhattan bodega clerk Jose Alba with murder after stabbing and killing an attacker behind his counter in self-defense.
Under the district attorney’s rule, authorities locked Alba at the Rikers Island jail charged with murder for six days until Bragg dropped the charge after facing heavy backlash from the public.
Victim Rights NY founder Jennifer Harrison criticized the district attorney Sunday on Fox News for being “completely incompetent” amid Bragg’s name circling headlines ahead of former President Trump’s arraignment in Manhattan on Tuesday.
“From day one, Alvin Bragg announced that he would not prosecute even the most violent of criminals,” Harrison said.
Victim Rights NY has called for Bragg’s removal from office since he entered, accusing the district attorney of implementing soft-on-crime policies, which the group said has made the city “progressively worse.”
“In Alvin Bragg’s New York, you can literally get away with murder,” Harrison said. “Criminals are absolutely above the law… his excuse is discovery reform, a policy he supports, by the way, and he doesn’t have enough resources to make sure New Yorkers don’t get killed by taking very violent people off the streets, but he has the resources to prosecute a former president on charges that everyone else decided he couldn’t be prosecuted for?”
“I think people have had enough,” she added.