NC Politicians Scramble After Video Shows Repeat Offender Stabbing Ukrainian Refugee on Train
“And then all of a sudden, you see his face change. He commits the act and it’s in a split second.”
In a GoFundMe set up for her family, 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska was described as someone who “had recently arrived in the United States, seeking safety from the war and hoping for a new beginning.”
Sadly, she would not get that chance. Zarutska boarded the Charlotte (NC) Light Rail system on Friday, August 22nd, just before 10 pm after her shift at a local pizza restaurant, and four minutes later, she was stabbed to death in what police say was a random attack, allegedly by a violent repeat offender who is well known to local law enforcement.
Though the case has gotten plenty of local coverage in the Charlotte area, it hasn’t received much national media attention. That is likely to change with the Friday release from CATS (Charlotte Area Transit System) of video from the train at the time of the violent crime.
The footage shows the suspect, 34-year-old Decarlos Brown Jr., in the moments leading up to the murder, Zarutska boarding the train and sitting directly in front of him, completely oblivious, of course, to what was about to happen, and in the moments after, where he’s seen walking to a train exit with blood dripping, presumably from the knife.
Out of respect for the family, the full video has not been shown to the public. But some Charlotte media outlets have released snippets, and the sheer senselessness and randomness of it just leave you shocked and speechless.
A news station walked through what happened to Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte when an animal brutally attacked her, unprovoked. He didn’t have a train ticket and shouldn’t have even been on in the first place. You should not have to live like this. pic.twitter.com/6YXuvDGfLl
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) September 6, 2025
WSOC-TV reporter Joe Bruno watched the full, unedited clip and pointed out that “It should be noted there were several heroic passengers who rushed to Zarutska’s aid. We saw one man take the shirt off his back and attempt CPR.” It’s hard to tell that in the longer clip, which admittedly is choppy, until towards the end:
Watch the full shocking footage from just a day ago showing Decarlos Brown Jr. b**tally carrying out an unprovoked attack on Ukrainian war refugee Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Follow: @Novexa24 pic.twitter.com/oWyJgrpfCw
— NOVEXA (@Novexa24) September 7, 2025
The CATS chief safety and security officer told WSOC-TV that:
“This individual was sitting down, for all intents and purposes looked like he was just having a normal train ride. There was nothing about his demeanor. He wasn’t sweating. He wasn’t talking to himself. He wasn’t interfacing in a manner that would have triggered attention to him that he was about to do a heinous act. And then all of a sudden, you see his face change. He commits the act and it’s in a split second.”
Some reports have noted that there were security officers on the light rail that night, but not in the car where Zarutska was murdered. They “were riding in the car directly ahead.”
Just days after Zarutska’s murder and as more was being learned about both her and the suspect, I wrote at the time how there were similarities between this case and the case of Jordan Neely, who, as we all know had mental health issues and a history of run-ins with law enforcement in New York City before a May 2023 subway incident where passengers, including Daniel Penny, subdued Neely after he was said to have acted threateningly towards other passengers. Neely was later pronounced dead at a a nearby hospital.
Like Neely, Brown was a repeat offender. Like Neely, Brown had a history of mental health issues that went unchecked. This was despite pleas from his mother and despite police officers repeatedly recommending that he take advantage of local resources. Like Neely, Brown was homeless.
And like Neely, conditions on the ground in Democrat-run Charlotte enabled him to be on the streets to victimize others, with Zarutska, tragically, paying the ultimate price.
This horrifying crime, which happened right in my own backyard, is a result of DEI, Black Lives Matter ideology that allowed a career criminal, who had been arrested 14 times previously, to walk the streets and terrorize innocent citizens.
Even now, our Democrat mayor is calling… https://t.co/nSVJ7pUfzx pic.twitter.com/AFLPcWvsI9
— Megan Basham (@megbasham) September 6, 2025
In the immediate aftermath of the crime, the locals were struck by how little had been said about it by law enforcement and city officials:
Usually after high profile, random crimes we do see CMPD give press conferences providing more clarity and info. I’m still scratching my head why one was not done for this, too. https://t.co/zkl6XKACNI
— Hunter Sáenz (@Hunt_Saenz) August 26, 2025
When that time came, it was Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles (D) who issued a statement, spending one whole sentence on the victim before spending several paragraphs talking about mental health and homelessness and how the homeless shouldn’t be stigmatized.
“We will never arrest our way out [of] issues such homelessness and mental health,” she wrote. And for good measure, she added, “Also, those who are unhoused are more frequently the victim of crimes and not the perpetrators.”
Lyles, who is up for reelection this fall, took a lot of heat for putting out a soft-on-crime statement that focused more on homelessness and mental health, and so little on the victim.
Predictably, most of what we’re hearing from the Democrat-run City Council, who are also up for reelection, and Democratic candidates for the offices, continues to revolve around so-called issues like equity, social justice, and affordable housing.
Few are spending much time on citizen safety and combating crime outside of putting out canned statements and trying to pass the buck, even amid reports that continue to pour in about how unsafe people have felt on the Charlotte Transit System, including the buses, due in part to lack of ticket checks and people frequently getting on the light rail with no ticket – something that reportedly happened with Brown as well.
And speaking of statements, Lyles put out another one after the release of the video, thanking the media outlets and “community members” that chose not to share it, and stating that the family needed to be respected. It was kind of rich considering she showed so little respect for the family in her initial statement, where she barely gave Zarutska a mention:
The video of the heartbreaking attack that took Iryna Zarutska’s life is now public. I want to thank our media partners and community members who have chosen not to repost or share the footage out of respect for Iryna’s family.
This was a senseless and tragic loss. My prayers remain with her loved ones as they continue to grieve through an unimaginable time.
Like so many of you, I’m heartbroken — and I’ve been thinking hard about what safety really looks like in our city. I remain committed to doing all we can to protect our residents and ensure Charlotte is a place where everyone feels safe.
Quite frankly, the only way Charlotte will truly feel safe again is when Democrats no longer control it. But I’m not sure that will ever happen, because like other big blue cities across the country, voting majorities here keep putting the same political party in charge even as things get worse. Wash, rinse, repeat.
– Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via X. –
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Comments
It’s ALWAYS the Amish….
True and it would not have taken 87 hours to release a statement from the police. If the races were reversed you know what would have happened.
None of the mainstream media is touching this, like it didn’t even happen
I’m shocked! Completely shocked that the
democrat propaganda machinemainstream media is ignoring this as if it didn’t happen. No, not really. black on White crime simply doesn’t register with them as it doesn’t fit the “blacks as eternal victims” narrative that the MSM has developed over the years. And I’m more than sure that some mainstream media pundit will find a way to blame the victim for her death. Guaranteed.I have Amish fatigue, as does MOST of America.
Leftist politicians are fighting for this to happen.
We don’t have a racism problem, we have a race problem. Anyone who sits with their back to any black male between the age of 12 and 50 is setting themselves up for a short lifespan.
Of course, there was someone one seat to the murderer’s right rear. But after what happened to Daniel Penny, no one in their right mind would dare step up.
So ladies, your white knight has been put to pasture. So, it looks like you are on your own.
But according to liberals, there are some fine people out there.
Having spent about the first 40% of my life in New York City, I learned a variety of survival skills, and I needed them in the days I worked in Harlem. If you can, sit with your back to a wall. That option was available to Iryna Zarutska as one can see from the video. Practice situational awareness. Size up the people near you on a bus or a train, and pay particular attention to demographics. Age, sex and race are are best predictors for high crime individuals. Be very careful of when potential targets are scare as they were on the nearly empty rail car. Change cars if you can, when the warnings signs are present.
As to offensive survival measures: carry weapons, both lethal and non-lethal, although that would not have helped Zarutska in this surprise attack. Realize that the enemy is anybody trying to get you killed. That includes our pols, media, NGO staff, etc. At some point we need to decide when enough is enough. We might have to cleanse the US of nearly all migrants, otherwise we are doomed as they are in Britain. In a war one does not bother with due process, rights and all that the crap that’s going to get you killed.
It was an Ukrainian migrant that got murdered by an American thug of a certain race
American large cities are the same as Mogadishu
I grew up in Milwaukee, I could take the bus into the inner city for clarinet lessons, transfer once on a very busy inner city street at 8 freaking years old and NEVER fear for my life
What’s changed one might ask
Same experience. I lived just north of Milwaukee. At 10 I would take a bus into Milwaukee and go anywhere by myself. Never worried and neither did my parents. Things have changed and I’m not sure what. Now I see parents in their cars waiting to pick up their kids from the school bus. Only things is they are waiting at the entrance to my condo complex with their kids dropped off no more that 50 feet away and my community is pretty safe.
Be honest. You know what changed. We went from a high majority white to having a significant minority of non-white. That’s the issue. That’s what happened.
The distribution of traits isn’t determinative of the individual, but it sure is determinative of the society where different types of people live.
The race of a person has nothing to do with it.
It is the values or lack of values that are installed into that person.
I have worked and known lots of wonderful people from minorities. I have worked and known plenty of what can be called “white trash.”
If you haven’t, then you should expand your experiences.
A lack of morals, a lack of wanting to gain an education, and a lack of being a productive member of society is not based of a person’s ethnicity.
I have, too. I know it makes you feel good to virtue signal how colorblind you are, but it simply doesn’t match reality. NAXALT fallacy isn’t persuasive when we see the distribution curve in our daily lives.
Magic soil doesn’t exist. Culture and values don’t appear magically. Blank-slate is reality denial.
You live in a fantasy land. You’re part of the problem.
Sure on an individual level and we should not lose sight of that by branding individuals … but simultaneously we can’t ignore the statistics at a group level. Same way you’d increase your alert/threat level if five rowdy young men were approaching you from an alley. The potential (statistically) for an attack/assault to occur with this group is much higher than from a group of five Nuns.
But it is a very PROMINENT indicator.
To think otherwise is being naive.
I grew up in Baltimore. I am aware that there are problem people of any race.
But I also know that my odds of getting murdered increase in black neighborhoods.
As a kid, I rode the transit bus. Howard and Lombard Street. Totally surrounded by whites. The only black teenager was the one who pulled a knife on me to rob me.
Thank you for agreeing with me.
It is not the race of an individual, it is the culture.
I grew up in Baltimore as well.
I worked for a chain store while getting a degree. I worked down on Monument Street, which you should remember as being majority minority.
We caught more whites stealing than blacks.
One of our other stores out in Ownings Mills had 95+% of white customers. They were hit harder per customer than my store.
You may also remember that in the early teens, there were two police scandals in Baltimore. One was a group of mostly white cops that were getting kickbacks from a tow company so when the cops went to an accident, they would call that particular company.
You may also remember the unit that was tasked with getting guns off the streets The unit was mixed in race, and led by a white lieutenant and a black lieutenant. That unit was getting the guns and selling them back onto the streets.
Should we assume from those cases that all cops are bad? Should we assume that despite the BCPD having far more black officers more than white officers, but in these cases the white cops were equally guilty, that cops are bad no matter what race?
Race is not an indicator of a person’s criminal intent. Culture is. How they were raised is. What their religious beliefs (or lack thereof) may be can be an indicator.
People are going to be evil no matter what race they are.
We have to get back to values in this country.
BTW – my father worked for the BTC (the transit system) before and after it was sold to the City of Baltimore, and then to the State of Maryland.
Not once did I infer anything about the BCPD. But now that you mention it, that was a corrupt outfit So we’re the mayors going back in my lifetime of Nancy PissLousy’s family led by Tommy D’A, followed by Willy Don and every last one of them to today.
So yeah, whites are not immune from corruption and crime.
I very much agree with you about culture. But at the same time, there is reality. We can theorize about what shapes cultures and who might or might not be responsible for cultural differences. But meanwhile, we can’t deny the problems that cultures have created, and we do need to protect ourselves. Of course we shouldn’t lump all individuals of a group together, but seriously, would you react differently to those young male – and let’s assume they’re all white – alley-emergers and the group of nuns? There are all sorts of indicators (dress, demeanor, etc.) we use to make judgements on how we should react, and race, unfortunately, now should be one of them. Why use every other indicator available and ignore just the one?
But not only that — we have also moved from a society where predators were hunted and punished to one where predators are largely not punished and some classes of predator are even lionized and given special privileges.
And while American society swirls down the drain, our social media bravely sticks its finger in the dike by canceling posts containing more and more common words. From the evidence here, they have now progressed to proscribing the word “brutally.” Yesterday, I posted on a site that replaced “NSFW” with “****”. I’m confident that victory for American law, order, and public etiquette is right around the corner.
More true in some locations than others though where true this sort of crime is inevitably commonplace. When some lefty wokiesta reacts by asking for compassion and understanding for the perpetrator they’ve lost sight of the basic social compact that binds a society; security and safety from external and internal threats. Everything else in a society flows from achieving and maintaining that state.
It’s not the color of their skin, it’s the content of their character, and many of them have none, regrettably.
It turns out that color of skin is one of many traits that show a different distribution between groups.
Dathurtz,
More like residents of certain zip codes share a subculture that is low trust, violent and antisocial. That’s the problem; the dysfunctional subculture these criminals are steeped in. It doesn’t follow that every person, everywhere who shares the particular ‘race’ of this dysfunctional zip code also share their behavior.
Commochief: Nowhere have I even insinuated otherwise.
We’d be fools to not recognize trends. What zipcode did the kid that murdered the white kid at the track live in?
We can’t say “This person has X characteristic because of the group they are in” but we can say X characteristic is more common in some groups that other groups. Race and sex is the strongest predictor of violent crime risk that is readily apparent to the normal person.
Nothing in reality has changed. In fact crime is a lot lower than it was in the ’60s and ’70s, when it was normal for kids to be out alone. What’s changed is that there’s more attention paid to each crime, resulting in parents panicking and way overestimating the risk to their children.
There’s also been a societal panic, so that even parents who are sane and would allow their children to go out by themselves are afraid of neighbors and the police who would accuse them of neglect and try to take their children from them.
See the work of Lenore Skenazy, who has written extensively about this problem.
Yeah. Crime is a lot lower unless you are the victim.
I prefer to not be a victim, especially when black privilege exists.
Call me a racist. I am. I don’t trust most black males of a certain age and location.
But at least I won’t be a victim of naïveté.
Crime isn’t even really lower. It rose from the 70s to the 90s and then fell to the same level as it was in the 70s. Unrelatedly, several large crime-ridden cities stopped reporting their crime information.
I was throwing Milhouse a bone.
Actually, you hit the nail on the head in that last sentence. We actually don’t know the real statistics as a number of Dem cities either reclassified crimes, like DC, or stopped reporting them to make it seem like they were doing better than they were while defunding the police.
I don’t trust blacks of any age no matter where they may be. Do not turn your back on a black or you might regret it the rest of your life. That is if you survive the encounter.
I’ll tell you what’s changed. Back in the day, there were fewer primates.
Coincidentally, this story appeared a few days ago:
https://www.breitbart.com/2nd-amendment/2025/09/03/7th-circuit-panel-upholds-illinois-public-transit-concealed-carry-ban/
It would annoy the predators if the prey could fight back.
Subotai Bahadur
I conceal carry everywhere but places I have a significant chance of being searched. Then I avoid those places if they are in a crime prone location.
My wife complained about me carrying everywhere, until multiple grocery stores were attacked, and purse snatching and carjacking increased at gas stations.
Now he’s is a well trained card carrying member of the alive crowd.
And how is anyone going to know if you conceal carry on the Illinois Public Transit system. By its very definition your weapon is concealed and not visible to others. Are they going to require all passengers to pass through a metal detector or what, exactly.
Never put your head down, never get absorbed in your phone or book. Always check your surroundings and the people. If someone looks off, move away and watch them. Tough if they don’t like it.
We shouldn’t have to love like that. For most of our country’s history we didn’t.
Because armed people created a polite society.
I know you meant live but that oddly fits love too. 🙂
We actually did live like that. It was called self preservation and was a very strong trait until the government actually convinced a vast number of people that they were responsible for protecting people not the people themselves. Your government can not protect you and should not be expected to in day to day life. The police can not be everywhere. What we can expect of the government is to either remove these multiple time felons and crazy people from the streets or get out of our way so we can defend ourselves.
Democrats love to argue against you being able to protect yourself and at the same time argue to defund the police and allow felons and nuts to walk freely among us.
But that’s racist!!!!!! /s
A white women sat directly in front of a black male wearing a hoodie.
I don’t care if he had a shining halo. I would have found someplace else to sit far away.
Better to be called a racist while alive, than to be dead.
And for God’s sake never sit with your back to a black. As this incident shows you can never tell what they’ll do at the next moment.
Long polished fingernails on the killer. Odd
The problem is that Charlotte, NC voters elect Dems like Mayor Vi Lyles. Unfortunately, this trend is likely to continue. The local district court judges (all Ds) see their role as making sure that there is no meaningful improvement.
I propose a solution that involves rope, a tree and gravity.
Some say the death penalty doesn’t deter murderers. But it sure as sh*t prevents recidivism, and there are certainly plenty of cases of that.
another blmplo brother carrying out the agenda
you cant be let out time after time from jail and not see the agenda that the lefty has for the good people …..carnage
If the “Just Us” system would simply not allow a 14x repeat offender on the streets, maybe we wouldn’t be having a discussion about what race is the most dangerous.
some gop female judge just released a blk matriarchy soldier after she beat the sh out of a little wht child in her care
The GOPe is as bad as the Dems.
“She sits in the row in front of Brown. She has earbuds in and is looking at her phone.”
Google “condition white.”
The cautious have sat with their backs to a wall since well before Rome.
The cautious sit with their backs to the wall. And nowadays they certainly do not sit with their backs to a black like this innocent victim did. And that’s a rule you should never forget.
Why does the Charlotte business community put up with this? HQ of Bank of America but they apparently are not involved civically. Take a lesson from Trump: Marshal the business community and use that leverage. Ostracize those businesses that don’t get on board. Move your operations outside the city limits. Quit banking for the city. No more contributions to civic efforts. Turn Charlotte into Baltimore.
DemoncRats: The party that protects the perps, prosecutes the victim, and champions illegal immigrants and homelessness. The party of moral inversion.
People are sick and tired of the incessant violent crime committed by sociopath criminals “of color” — recidivists or not — all coddled, enabled and protected by Dhimmi-crat apparatchiks, naturally.
The Dhimmi-crats’ sick and evil orthodoxies posit that aggressively arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating black criminal sociopaths, thugs and predators allegedly constitute racist acts by the State. That’s how sick these rotten reprobates and their wretched party, are.
I believe the death penalty should only be imposed in very limited cases. This is one of them. This piece of human garbage should have already been arraigned, tried and lit up like a Christmas tree.
“unhoused” Lol