President Donald Trump has promised to personally intervene in the case of 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska, a woman killed on the Charlotte, North Carolina, light rail system last month.
The man arrested in the case? A 34-year-old with an extensive history of arrests and mental health issues whose own mother said shouldn’t have been out on the streets.
While the fatal stabbing happened on board the light rail on Aug. 22, the case has attracted additional scrutiny after graphic video of the incident was released Friday.
In the video, Decarlos Brown is seen behind Zarutska on the light rail car, scarcely controlling himself. Zarutska, meanwhile, seems to be unaware of the presence behind her, WCNC reported.
She ran from war in Ukraine. She came here for safety.
And America FAILED her.
23-year-old Iryna Zarutska was butchered on a Charlotte light rail, her throat cut open by a violent repeat offender who had been arrested 14 times and was STILL free.
This wasn’t random. This was… pic.twitter.com/woRCbMyioq
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 6, 2025
Brown then allegedly takes out a pocket knife, unfolds it, stands up, and attacks Zarutska, stabbing her three times in the throat area.
He’s been charged with first-degree murder.
During an appearance in Maryland on Sunday, WCNC reported, Trump was asked about the situation during his remarks on National Guard deployment in Washington, D.C., and Chicago.
“Horrible,” Trump said about the murder.
“I’ll know all about it by tomorrow,” he added.
Eric Daughtry of Florida’s Voice News said that this was a “GOOD” sign.
“The President of the United States should know about what happened. It is a sign of our MAJOR urban decay and culture of crime propped up by the left. Don’t let the story be forgotten,” he wrote on X.
???? BREAKING: President Trump will now look into the MURDER of Iryna Zarutska by a black man in Charlotte.
“Horrible…I’ll know all about it by tomorrow morning.”
GOOD. The President of the United States should know about what happened. It is a sign of our MAJOR urban decay and… pic.twitter.com/KWQKNhsgHG
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) September 7, 2025
The case brings up whether Charlotte is another city that’s Democrat-run and cannot police itself.
As WCNC pointed out, “Brown has 14 previous court cases in Mecklenburg County. He was sentenced to six years in North Carolina prison after convictions for robbery with a dangerous weapon, breaking and entering, and larceny in Mecklenburg County in 2015. The convictions were for two separate incidents in 2013 and 2014, according to jail records.”
Most charges against him were dropped, however. He was facing a misuse of 911 system after calling the emergency number earlier this year, telling responders that there was a “man-made” substance inside of his body that was controlling him, Axios reported.
Per the outlet: “Even Brown’s mother has blamed the courts for allowing her son to be out in the community.”
Yet, although the judge in Brown’s case ordered a forensic evaluation and his public defender questioned whether he was mentally fit to stand trial, he was never in custody.
In a meeting before the stabbing, Charlotte Councilwoman Dimple Ajmera said City Manager Marcus Jones needed “to provide us immediate steps that are being taken to ensure the safety of our riders and operators and to restore the confidence in our system.”
And, yes, that needs to be done — but it still won’t be enough. A reminder, Zarutska was a woman who fled war in Ukraine only to be killed on the streets of an American city. Charlotte has a crime rate of 4438.5 per 100,000 — a higher crime rate than Chicago, which nobody has ever claimed is particularly safe — and is fourth worst among American cities with population of over a million people.
It also has one of the largest black communities in the South — and it’s clear from the lack of attention this case got before the video’s release on Friday that the fact it was a black offender allegedly killing a white war refugee spat in the face of the left’s narrative regarding crime and power. That was doubly true with Brown’s long criminal and mental health history.
If the city can’t stop its problems itself, the National Guard can certainly help in this department. Trump has made it clear he’ll hammer the system and its failures, and few crimes demonstrate just how broken it is in big cities than this one.
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