NYC isn't going to Hell it is in Hell

METRO 

EXCLUSIVE

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Flipboard
• Email
• Copy

Shot NYC parking-garage worker who fired at suspected thief weeps while cuffed to bed

https://nypost.com/2023/04/02/shot-nyc-parking-garage-worker-weeps-while-cuffed-to-bed/

By 

Tina Moore and 

 

Jorge Fitz-Gibbon

April 2, 2023 6:14pm 

 Updated

The Manhattan parking-garage worker who was initially hit with an attempted-murder rap for shooting an armed would-be thief wept as he lay handcuffed to his hospital bed Sunday, stunned at his fate.

“I got bullets in me, and I’m chained to a hospital bed, but I didn’t do anything wrong,” Moussa Diarra, 57, lamented, according to Meyers Parking owner Michael Carolan to The Post.

Diarra was shot twice during a tussle with suspected thief Charles Rhodie at Carolan’s West 31st Street garage early Saturday before using the accused man’s weapon to shoot him back.

Diarra was initially charged by cops in the case, including with criminal possession of a weapon for having Rhodie’s gun at one point, but Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office Sunday dropped the raps. Rhodie still faces charges including attempted murder.

Before Diarra was cleared, he looked absolutely crestfallen in a photo at Bellevue Hospital obtained by The Post. 

“One of my first thoughts was a political football, and this gentleman shouldn’t become a political football,” Carolan said — as Bragg continues to take heat over his local alleged soft-on-crime policies.

Moussa Diarra, 57, wept as he lay handcuffed to his Bellevue Hospital bed Sunday before Manhattan prosecutors dropped the attempted-murder charge against him. 

provided

“I can’t get my head around, necessarily, the legal process of charging an individual and having to go through 48 hours for his family and himself,” Carolan said. 

“Here’s a gentleman who’s just a hardworking individual doing his job,” he said of Diarra. “You just think you’re doing the right thing. The altercation happens because of the other individual, not our guy. He’s reacting.”

Diarra was on the job at the West Side garage around 5:30 a.m. Saturday when he allegedly caught Rhodie, 59, peering inside cars there. 

The Manhattan garage worker was shot twice before turning a suspected thief’s gun on him and shooting the accused crook in the chest.

William Farrington

The attendant confronted the intruder, and the two got into a scuffle, with Rhodie pulling out a handgun and shooting Diarra twice, only to have the attendant wrestle the gun away and fire a shot into Rhodie’s chest, according to police. 

Diarra had surgery for two bullet wounds, one to his gut and the other to his ear, his lawyer, Charles Clayman, told The Post on Sunday.

Cops ended up charging both men with attempted murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon — leaving Diarra not only wounded but baffled. 

The cuffs only came off him later Sunday, after Bragg’s office announced that it was declining to prosecute Diarra pending further investigation. 

Cops scour the Manhattan scene where a parking-garage worker and alleged thief were shot.

William Farrington

“My understanding is they saw [Rhodie] kind of in between vehicles,” Carolan said. “So, they brought him downstairs, and there was a conversation about a bag and wanting to make sure he didn’t take anything while he was up there for that brief time.

“He pulled out a gun, and [Diarra’s] flight or fight kicks in,” he said. “I’m sure he was nervous and panicked and reacted.