


A Manhattan parking-garage worker who was shot in the stomach by a would-be thief before wrestling the gun away and injuring the suspect, holds no ill-will towards his assailant, a family friend told The Post.
Moussa Diarra, 57, was initially hit with an attempted-murder rap for shooting his alleged attacker, Charles Rhodie.
The charges were quickly dropped.
The two men tussled during an April 1 altercation at a Meyer’s Parking garage on West 31st Street.
“He’s happy to be doing better and to be released soon. He keeps a positive mind, he’s a good person. He’s not even angry about what happened to him. We’re thanking God everyday,” said Mariame Diarra Souabo, a family friend who used to live in the same apartment as Diarra and his family in the Bronx, said of the attendant.
Souabo, like Diarra and his family, hails from West Africa, Ivory Coast. She said the only person currently visiting him is his wife. Souabo said she spoke with Diarra over the phone on Thursday.
The parking attendant is “undecided on whether he will return to work,” she said.
Just last week, Moussa Diarra wept as he lay handcuffed to his hospital bed, stunned at his predicament before the Manhattan District Attorney’s office declined to press charges.
“I got bullets in me, and I’m chained to a hospital bed, but I didn’t do anything wrong,” Diarra lamented, according to Meyers Parking’s Chief Operating Officer Michael Carolan, who spoke to The Post.
Diarra was shot twice during a skirmish with Rhodie at Carolan’s West 31st Street garage 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 dropped the raps a day later. Rhodie still faces charges including attempted murder.