Remember when they told us that “3 strikes and you’re out” was cruel and unfair, and just filled up prisons for no good reason? Those were pro-crime lies. Listening to them (and both Dems and GOPers listened to them) is why we have a criminal hellscape where things like this keep happening.

Iryna Zarutska, a Ukranian refugee, was murdered on a train after returning from working at a pizzeria by Decarlos Brown.

Brown stabbed her from behind.

Decarlos Brown had been arrested 14 times and yet never kept behind bars. This wouldn’t have taken three strikes. This was fourteen strikes until he finally murdered someone in a manner so public that this time he might actually stay locked up for a while.

The alternative to 3 strikes and you’re out is more than 3 strikes and someone else is out. In this case that was Iryna.

Brown has been in and out of the system since 2011. That’s 14 years. Or since he was 20. Had he been arrested as a juvenile with the record sealed? Probably.

We don’t need to live this way. Most of us can remember a time when we didn’t. It’s a choice. It’s a choice to keep pitying monsters while being cruel to their victims.