Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos.
Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I’d like to return, if I could, to the brutal murder of the Ukrainian immigrant, Ms. Iryna Zarutska, who was killed on a light rail, as we saw from the video, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
I think the way to look at this, this was a horrible scab—this incident—but once it was pulled off, we saw a putrid wound underneath. And all of our pathologies that we really have to deal with were apparent and led to her death.
The first thing, of course, is she was blamed—I could not believe it—in some of the videos that she was not situationally aware. That she walked into an area where there was a suspicious-looking individual with a hoodie on—black Americans, that maybe they meant by their analyses that they have, statistically, higher propensity in that particular demographic to commit violent crimes.
But wait a minute. Why should she have to worry? This is the United States. She’s a Ukrainian immigrant. She’s a young woman. She doesn’t know the customs and traditions as we do. She should have an expectation that when she comes here, that she will be safe. That’s our job as Americans. The public officials of Charlotte have to ensure the safety. They didn’t do it. They didn’t even charge admission. They did it by an honor system. They had no security.
More importantly, then we were told, “Well, we can’t really blame the three or four bystanders that didn’t jump to her aid because, you know, I mean, how did they know that they wouldn’t be stabbed?”
Well, if you look at the video very carefully, they looked at Mr. Decarlos Brown Jr., and they, in the corner of their eye, saw what he was doing. There were three or four of them. I think if Daniel Penny can stop one person from harassing and probably violently attacking others, four people, together, could have stopped him.
But put that aside. He walked out, Mr. Decarlos Brown, after he executed her. And in her death throes, he wasn’t there. All they had to do was step aside. I don’t know if they could have staunched such a horrific wound and saved her life, but they made no effort. In fact, they looked out of the corner of their eye and they walked by. What callousness in the country have we inculcated?
Now there’s a big controversy over whether he said, “I got the white girl” or “Got the white girl.” He said it twice on the video. I don’t know if the video was doctored or not, but if it was not doctored, it hasn’t been in the mainstream press because there’s another pathology that people do not want to talk about the truth.
The truth is that we have a crime problem in the United States in the African-American inner city. Not in rural African-American communities. Not in African-American women. Not necessarily in African-American men over 40 or 50. But from 15 to 40, that demographic comprises about 3% of the country, and they’re committing about 50% of the violent crimes, as we saw with Iryna. And yet, we didn’t talk about it.
In fact, we were told by the mayor not to politicize this. She politicized this by saying that arresting people would not solve the problem. Had you arrested Mr. Decarlos Brown, it would’ve solved the problem. She said, “We can’t demonize the homelessness.” If demonizing the homelessness means that they’re not going to slit somebody’s throat, I will prefer that Iryna be alive and I will demonize Mr. Decarlos Brown for having 14 felonies.
And finally, another pathology or another wound was revealed. The magistrate, Teresa Stokes, allowed him, with 14 felonies, up on another felony of misusing the 911 system. That in itself may not have been an existential crime, but given his record of violence, why didn’t she keep him in jail? Why wasn’t there an indictment and a trial and conviction?
You know why there wasn’t? Because Teresa Stokes herself was a magistrate. And what place in America allows a judge to have a courtroom and adjudicate guilt or innocence or sentencing when she has no law degree? She never even passed the bar. She didn’t take the bar. She just had a bachelor’s degree.
More importantly, when in America does a judge who sentenced criminals to various treatment programs, alternative sentencing, jail have a vested financial interest in a particular alternate treatment? She did both in, allegedly, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and she had one in Michigan.
So, you had a judge without a legal degree who would not pass the bar, had not taken the bar, letting out a career felon and sentencing him to alternate treatments, of which, in the past, she’s had a financial interest. Only in America, today, could that happen.
Why did it happen? Because apparently, people feel that it’s somewhat not diverse or not equal or it’s not inclusive to require someone to have a law degree to be a judge. And therefore, you have Teresa Stokes. And therefore, you have no sentencing, no confinement for Decarlos Brown.
And therefore, you have him not having to pay anything to get onto the light-rail car with no security there. And then he comes in with a knife. You’re not supposed to have a hidden weapon, but who cares in America? And he mutters as he walks out that he, supposedly—it’s not proven, but you can hear it on the video—that he “got the white girl.”
And then only in America will the commentary say, “Don’t mention race, don’t mention homelessness, don’t mention having people arrested. That wouldn’t make any difference.” It made all the difference.
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