A deadly stabbing of a Ukrainian refugee in North Carolina last month has sparked outrage among elected officials, including President Trump, after local authorities released video of the attack on the Charlotte Area Transit System.
Police say 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska, who fled the war in Ukraine only to be killed in an apparently random attack on Aug. 22, was allegedly stabbed by a man with a long record of criminal charges and psychiatric crises. The suspect, 34-year-old Decarlos Brown Jr., had served time in prison, been briefly committed for schizophrenia and was arrested earlier this year after repeatedly calling 911 from a hospital.
Officials in Charlotte faced sharp criticism for failing to keep Brown, who has a history of mental illness, arrests and erratic behavior, off the streets before Zarutska was fatally stabbed on the commuter train — a killing that critics claim could have been prevented.
Brown was arrested at the scene and charged with first-degree murder. Court records show he had cycled through the criminal justice system for more than a decade, with 14 prior cases in Mecklenburg County, including a five-year prison sentence for robbery with a dangerous weapon.
The Aug. 22 attack, captured in recently released surveillance videos, has drawn condemnation of local officials and emerged as a talking point in the discussion about public safety, especially among conservatives who have supported the Trump administration’s crackdown on crime in places such as Washington, D.C., where the president has deployed the National Guard.
“I have seen the horrific video of a beautiful, young Ukrainian refugee, who came to America to escape the vicious War in Ukraine, and was innocently riding the Metro in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she was brutally ambushed by a mentally deranged lunatic,” Mr. Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Monday, also slamming cashless bail and asking why the suspect had been allowed out of jail.
Zarutska had come to the United States to escape Russia’s invasion, relatives wrote in a GoFundMe post, describing her as determined to build a safer life.
Videos released two weeks after the incident show Zarutska sitting on the light-rail train as Brown takes a seat directly behind her. Minutes later, without any apparent interaction, he pulls out a pocketknife, stands and slashes her in the neck, investigators said. Passengers screamed and scattered as she collapsed.
Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles called Zarutska’s killing “a senseless and tragic loss.”
“Like so many of you, I’m heartbroken — and I’ve been thinking hard about what safety really looks like in our city,” she posted on X after authorities released footage of the attack.
In a letter addressed to the community on Monday, Lyles said the incident was a “tragic failure by the courts and magistrates.
“We need a bipartisan solution to address repeat offenders who do not face consequences for their actions and those who cannot get treatment for their mental illness and are allowed to be on the streets,” the mayor’s letter reads.
Brown’s mother told local television she sought an involuntary psychiatric commitment earlier this year after he became violent at home. Doctors diagnosed him with schizophrenia. It was unclear what kind of treatment he received, if any, following the diagnosis.
Brown had also been arrested in January when officers were called to a Charlotte hospital for a welfare check.
He told officers that he believed someone gave him man-made material that controlled when he ate, walked and talked, according to police records. Brown became upset after officers told him there was nothing further they could do. A judge released him at the time without bail.
Court records also show that Brown faced charges ranging from making threats and shoplifting to felony larceny dating back to 2011, although some of those charges appear to have been dismissed.
The Associated Press left a message seeking comment on Monday with the attorney representing him on the murder charge.
What President Trump, Sean Duffy and some state lawmakers are saying
Mr. Trump on Monday sent his love to the victim’s family and called the suspect “a madman” while speaking at the Museum of the Bible in Washington. “They are evil people. We have to be able to handle that. If we don’t handle that, we don’t have a country,” he said.
In his Truth Social post, the president blamed Democrats, singling out by name former Gov. Roy Cooper, who’s now running for Senate, “who refuse to put bad people in jail.” Mr. Trump added that “North Carolina, and every State, needs LAW AND ORDER, and only Republicans will deliver it!”
Several Republicans and Trump allies claim the attack shows that large cities and governors are failing to protect their residents and justifies the president’s federal takeover of Washington and his plans to replicate that effort in other places.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed Charlotte officials, including the city’s Democratic mayor, for allowing Brown to be on the streets.
“This monster had a track record longer than a CVS receipt, including prison time for robbery with a dangerous weapon, breaking and entering, and larceny,” Duffy wrote Sunday on X. “By failing to properly punish him, Charlotte failed Iryna Zarutska and North Carolinians.”
Duffy later wrote on X that he stands “firm with President Trump’s message of zero tolerance for criminality, especially on our federal DOT funded public transportation.”
“If mayors can’t keep their trains and buses safe, they don’t deserve the taxpayers’ money,” Duffy wrote, adding that the Department of Transportation will investigate Charlotte “[a]nd we will also be looking at other crime ridden cities across the country.”
Top Republican lawmakers in North Carolina’s state Legislature echoed the criticism. “This is the cost of soft-on-crime ‘leadership,'” Republican House Speaker Destin Hall wrote on social media. “Anyone who puts criminals before victims has no business in public office.”
Random attacks and violence in U.S. cities have taken on increasing significance nationally this year, colliding with the politics of crime and immigration as the Trump administration plans to ramp up a greater federal role on city streets.
Mr. Trump has threatened to deploy the National Guard to several Democratic-led cities, including Chicago, Baltimore and San Francisco, to fight what he says is runaway crime. Despite Mr. Trump’s rhetoric, Vice President JD Vance said in recent days that the administration has “no immediate plans” to send National Guard forces to Chicago. The comments came one day after Mr. Trump again suggested he would send federal forces to Chicago, saying “we’re going in.”
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has opposed the president’s plans, and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker called Mr. Trump’s threat to send troops to Chicago a call for “war with an American city.”
Meanwhile, local police department data shows that most violent crime in those places and around the country has declined in recent years.
Those same trends have largely held true in Charlotte, where the rates of homicides, robberies, aggravated assault and burglary all decreased between 2020 and 2024 but auto thefts rose significantly, according to AH Datalytics, which tracks crime using local law enforcement data for its Real-Time Crime Index.
In 2024, though, homicides in Charlotte did spike by nearly 20% over the previous year, but that number has dropped again during the first six months of this year, according to the data.
