Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska’s “blood is on the hands of the Democrats who refuse to put bad people in jail,” said President Donald Trump in his usual blunt assessment on Tuesday. Zarutska was savagely murdered on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina, by a deranged vagrant named Decarlos Brown Jr. This isn’t “alleged.” It’s on gut-wrenching video.
The surveillance recording of the August 22 murder wasn’t made public until last Friday, and the national media was slow to pick it up. The full video (warning: graphic) wasn’t released until yesterday. When some Leftmedia outlets finally did cover the story, they framed it not as one of inner city crime but of right-wing outrage. (The New York Times was especially appalling.) How dare you notice, they seemed to say.
In the case of CNN’s Van Jones, he felt sorry for the murderer, saying, “This man was hurting.”
The story is that a black vagrant was repeatedly arrested and released by Democrats who couldn’t care less about him or the victims of any of his crimes. He boarded that train without paying and while carrying an illegal knife. For no apparent reason whatsoever, he pulled out that knife and brutally stabbed a slender, young, white woman three times before walking away while dripping vast amounts of blood.
As if to explain his motives, he said — twice — to other passengers, “I got that white girl.”
Van Jones doesn’t think race played a role.
The five black passengers surrounding Zarutska and Brown did nothing, even when a horrified Zarutska looked back up at Brown, started sobbing, and a few seconds later slumped over in her seat amidst a quickly growing pool of blood. The woman across the aisle looked at her, looked back at her phone, got up, and walked away.
I want to be careful not to be an armchair quarterback here, so I’ll say this: It was not immediately obvious that Brown had stabbed Zarutska. She didn’t scream, probably because she couldn’t. The other passengers were likely either completely unaware of what really happened or too shocked to respond.
However, even if all he did was punch her, for heaven’s sake, intervene. The dripping blood and her slumping over were also obvious clues. For the love of humanity, help.
Instead, it was a minute and a half after Iryna fell to the floor before two passengers finally came to her aid. It was too late — though it’s possible no one could have saved her, even had they helped sooner.
In addition to North Carolina filing a first-degree murder charge against Brown, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced yesterday that the Justice Department has filed federal charges against this “repeat violent offender with a history of violent crime, for murder.” Brown was arrested and released 14 times. To that point, Bondi added, “We will seek the maximum penalty for this unforgivable act of violence — he will never again see the light of day as a free man.”
Similarly, FBI Director Kash Patel weighed in. “The brutal attack on Iryna Zarutska on the Charlotte light rail was a disgraceful act that should never happen in America,” he said. “The FBI jumped to assist in this investigation immediately to ensure justice is served, and the perpetrator is never released from jail to kill again.”
In an emotional press conference, Russ Ferguson, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, gave some context for Zarutska’s life. “She is a refugee,” he said. “She literally came to the United States from a bomb shelter in Ukraine to escape the war.” Holding back tears, he added, “After Iryna’s death, the embassy in Ukraine called and said, ‘We’ll help you bring her home.’ And her family said no. They said, ‘She loved America. We’re gonna bury her here.’ So I think we can give her an America to be proud of. … Something here is broken, and we’re here to fix it.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pointed to Zarutska’s refugee status as well. “This beautiful, innocent 23-year-old young woman was a Ukrainian refugee who had recently fled her country for a chance at a safer life in a promising new beginning here in the United States of America. But tragically, a public transportation system in a major American city was more dangerous than the active war zone that she left.”
Leavitt eviscerated the judge and the system that allowed Brown to walk free time and again, including just this year, with no bail and a mere signed promise to return for a court hearing. “This is madness,” she said. “This monster should have been locked up, and Iryna should still be alive. But Democrat politicians, liberal judges, and weak prosecutors would rather virtue-signal than lock up criminals and protect their communities.”
Next up for Leavitt’s deserved ire was the media, which “decided that her murder was not worth reporting on originally because it does not fit a preferred narrative.” By contrast, she noted, “Many of the journalists in this room spilled plenty of ink trying to smear Daniel Penny for defending a subway car from a deranged lunatic in New York City, but none of those same reporters lift a finger to write stories about an actual murderer.”
Vice President JD Vance also noted, “Daniel Penny prevented this from happening on a NYC subway. Instead of thanking him, many hated him for it.”
Indeed, the prosecution of Penny for his actions to save fellow travelers from a similarly deranged vagrant surely persuades other passengers like those aboard the Charlotte train to just mind their own business and not get involved.
“For far too long, Americans have been forced to put up with Democrat-run cities that set loose savage, bloodthirsty criminals to prey on innocent people,” President Trump said in a White House video released on Tuesday. He held up pictures of the surveillance video and of the killer and victim. He also knows exactly where to put the blame, noting that “24 of the top 25 most dangerous cities in America are run by Democrat mayors.”
🚨President Trump has just released a video on the killing of Iryna Zarutska:
“We have to be viscous, just like they are. It’s the only thing they understand.”
“We cannot allow … vioIent repeat offenders to continue spreading destruction and death.” pic.twitter.com/j1NoFZhdwO
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) September 9, 2025
Speaking of Democrat mayors, Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles won the Democrat primary on Tuesday, amidst the growing national attention on her city and the brutal crime. Her Republican opponent, Terrie Donovan, had already made crime a central issue of her campaign.
Dear Charlotte voters…
Meanwhile, 10 North Carolina Republicans called for the removal of Magistrate Judge Teresa Stokes, who “displayed a willful failure to perform the duties of her office” by allowing Brown to walk free.
Audio of Brown speaking in jail was released this morning. “The material used my body to stab the lady,” he told officers. “You know, that’s not me. I’m talking about just for no reason, but since they did that, since they did that, now they got to investigate the material my body exposed to.” He added, “They just lashed out on her.”
Clinically, he has schizophrenia, but all I can say is that demons are real.
“We used to know how to deal with psychotic, violent criminals,” writes John Daniel Davidson. “They would either be incarcerated for a long period of time or involuntarily committed to long-term treatment in a state psychiatric hospital.”
Rather than stop crime, leftists think it’s “compassionate” to release criminals and complain about the systemic racism that supposedly overincarcerates them.
How many more innocent people — often young women with otherwise bright futures — have to die to prove that Democrat policies are deadly and there’s no substitute for the Rule of Law?
