The brutal murder of a Ukrainian refugee in Charlotte, North Carolina, has become yet another contentious political battle when it clearly shouldn't be. While Republicans have pointed out the culture of criminality and lax enforcement that led to the slaying, which was caught on video, Democrats and their press allies have quickly shifted to blaming people for noticing.
While the below surveillance footage does stop right before the knife strikes Iryna Zarutska, viewer discretion is still advised.
After initially not reporting the murder for over a day, some press outlets eventually put out headlines blaring some version of "Republicans pounce."
SEE: Axios Hits New Low, Whines That Irya Zarutska's Murder Validates MAGA Crime Message
Yes, because that's what the real story is here. It's not that yet another repeat offender was repeatedly thrown back out onto the streets by Democrat "social justice" policies. It's that Republicans would dare point out the consequences of those policies in relation to another senseless killing, this time carried out by a guy who had 14 prior arrests.
Which brings me to the next part of the left-wing narrative. If you've followed how these stories go in the past, there's a matrix that decides how Democrats respond to an act of violence. If the perpetrator fits their political narrative, the spotlight is placed firmly on their identity. If it doesn't, and a gun is involved, then they focus on gun control. But when the perpetrator doesn't fit their political narrative and didn't use a gun, then it becomes a discussion on "mental illness."
After CNN's Brian Stelter tried that line, Fox News' Greg Gutfeld exploded.
GUTFELD: I'm Tired, also, of the term 'mental illness' being used to cover for criminality. When a thug targets a woman, that is not insane. He knows she's weaker. When he comes from behind with a knife, that's not insane. He minimizes her ability to inflict harm on him. When the thug flees, that's sane because he knows if he stays, he'll be arrested. So what would be insane would be if he were to face off against a man without a weapon. Somebody like a Tyrus. That would be insane. Okay, that's crazy, but almost all the people who do this stuff, they go after women. That is not insane, that's self-preservation.
This is not insanity, it's an evil mind, and it's an evil mind that is somehow excused in a culture that weaponized victim status, in this case, mental illness, mental illness. And what is it about society that contributes to this, and I say this based on my own personal experience of being on scity streets every single day, every single day in New York, that when a homeless person is shouting at people, he's not shouting, "I really made a mess of my life, boy, I really screwed up." No, his aggression is purely blaming other things and other people. He blames the world, he blames people, he blames you.
So we're living in a progressive ideological nightmare where the worst in society is empowered by a sense of victimhood, so when this happens, they will still get people like Brian Stelter that says, "Oh, be careful of the racism," or other people saying, "You know what, we really need to be concerned about our services to the mentally ill," which may or may not be true, but he's not mentally ill. He needs to be executed.
Some will immediately try to quibble with Gutfeld's pronouncement that this murderer wasn't mentally ill, but I think that's an irrelevant argument. Mental illness should not be a factor in not prosecuting murderers, nor in how we handle people with multiple arrests. If you'd be too dangerous to go free as a sane person who stabbed a woman in the neck, then you're too dangerous to go free as an insane person who stabbed a woman in the neck.
Democrats don't agree, and that's why mental illness has become such a trope in these discussions. It's trotted out as a way to excuse or lessen the brutality of a person who committed such a heinous act. Likewise, those like Stelter then pretend to be more outraged by supposed "racism" than the killing itself.
If this guy is truly mentally ill, then he should have been forcibly committed long ago instead of being allowed to roam the streets. That he had 14 prior arrests only makes it so much worse. It is not compassionate to give a dangerously deranged person the freedom to live on the streets. I understand the United States has a checkered history with the treatment of the mentally ill, but clearly, the pendulum has swung far too much in the opposite direction. If a person is schizophrenic with violent tendencies, as this man is claimed to be, that person is a threat to society and should be treated as such.
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