Alvin Bragg prosecutes domestic violence survivor despite support

Source: ALEX KENT / Getty

The man you are looking at above is Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. During his 2020 campaign to win that job, he showed support to Tracy McCarter who had been arrested and charged with the murder of her abusive husband.

According to a report in The Nation, McCarter and her estranged alcoholic husband had been separated for seven months when he drunkenly rang her doorbell one night. When she let him in, he demanded that she give him money and became violent. When all was said and done, Jim Murray had a stab wound in his chest from a kitchen knife that McCarter had grabbed to protect herself.

B-b-b-but wait, it gets worse! The stabbing took place in March of 2020 just as the COVID pandemic was crystallizing in America. The DA at the time had McCarter arrested and sought to have her charged with 2nd degree murder which would mean that she would not receive bail. As the pandemic shutdown all court proceedings, McCarter sat in Rikers Island prison for six months without being officially charged.

Is your blood boiling as hot as ours is right now?

If you can’t imagine this situation being even worse, hold our beer. The judge in the case, who wrote a book on domestic violence, refuse to accepted any plea deal such as an “Alford plea” that would not require an admission of guilt. The judge’s name is Diane Kiesel, a woman. Guess empathy and solidarity ain’t her thing.

“The criminal legal system has become another abuser to her,” Samah Sisay, a member of Survived and Punished and one of McCarter’s supporters, told the crowd. Bragg’s office, she continued, “floats the lie that it’s just the judge, not their office [pursuing charges against McCarter]. We’re here to call on the Manhattan district attorney and to say, ‘You have the power to drop the charges.’”

Free Tracy McCarter!