Trump makes campaign stop at NY bodega

Figures, Dobson win nominations for Alabama

NEW YORK, April 17, (AP): Fresh from a Manhattan courtroom, Donald Trump visited a New York bodega where a man was stabbed to death, a stark pivot for the former president as he juggles being a criminal defendant and the Republican challenger intent on blaming President Joe Biden for crime.

Trump stopped by Sanaa Convenient Store, a tiny bodega that sells chips, sodas and other snacks. Trump aides said the former president and presumptive GOP nominee chose the store because it has been the site of a violent attack on an employee.

Presumptive

The visit was Trump’s first campaign appearance since his criminal hush money trial began, making the presumptive GOP nominee the first former president in US history to stand criminal trial.

Trump will be confined to the courtroom on most days, dramatically limiting his movements and his ability to campaign, fundraise and make calls. Aides have been planning rallies and other political events on weekends and Wednesdays, the one weekday when court is not supposed to be in session. Plans also include local appearances Trump can make after court recesses each day.

For months, Trump has assailed Democratic-run cities as crime-ridden and overrun with migrants who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. His local campaign stop in Harlem allows him to blend that familiar, if often exaggerated, message with his promise to make a serious play at winning his native state despite its heavily Democratic lean.

“They want law and order ... every week they’re being robbed,” Trump said of businesses in New York, as he tried to compare his prosecution with the state of New York streets. “You know where the crime is? It’s in the bodegas.”

Despite Trump’s rhetoric, FBI statistics show overall violent crime in the U.S. dropped considerably in 2023 after pandemic-era spikes that began in 2020, when Trump was president. Crime also has fallen in New York City.

Still, in July 2022, Jose Alba, a clerk at the store Trump visited in Hamilton Heights, a heavily Hispanic section of Harlem, was attacked by 35-year-old Austin Simon. The resulting altercation, captured on surveillance video, ended with Alba fatally stabbing Simon. Alba, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, was arrested and charged with murder but the Manhattan district attorney dropped the charges within weeks, saying they could not prove Alba had not acted in self-defense.

Also:

MONTGOMERY, Ala.: Alabama voters decided primary runoffs on Tuesday for the state’s newly redrawn 2nd Congressional District, setting up a potentially historic November race that could play a part in the battle for control of the US House of Representatives.

Shomari Figures, a former top aide to US Attorney General Merrick Garland, defeated state House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels to win the Democratic nomination. Attorney and political newcomer Caroleene Dobson defeated former state Sen. Dick

Brewbaker to win the Republican nomination. Dobson and Figures will face off in November in the closely watched general election.

Democrats are aiming to flip the seat after the district was redrawn by a federal court to boost the voting power of Black residents. If Figures is elected, it will be the first time in history that

Alabama, which is about 27% Black, has two Black members in its congressional delegation.

“I’m enormously grateful for the confidence and the trust and the faith that the voters of this newly drawn district have placed in me to represent the Democratic Party in November,” Figures said as he addressed supporters Tuesday night. “That is something that I do not take lightly.”

Figures, an attorney, also served as an aide to former President Barrack

Obama, serving as domestic director of the Presidential Personnel Office.