Iryna Zarutska was just another passenger when she boarded the late-night Blue Line train after it pulled into Scaleybark station, just a few miles outside of downtown Charlotte. She wore khaki pants and a dark shirt. Her long blonde hair had been tucked under a hat from Zepeddie’s Pizzeria where she worked.
Like nearby passengers, the 23-year-old bowed her head as the train continued on, absorbed by the phone in her hand. Zarutska, a refugee from Ukraine, had picked an empty row, and sat in front of a man in a red sweatshirt, unaware of the two’s imminent collision course.
Just four minutes later, Decarlos Brown, the passenger behind her, dug into the fold of his clothes and took out what appeared to be a knife. For a moment, he looked back out the window, as if that was all he was going to do. But in a quick movement, he launched up and swung his arm over the seat and fatally stabbed Zarutska, who clutched her face and throat before slouching to the ground.
Zarutska died on the train from her injuries as passengers kneeled over her trying to help. Brown has been charged with first-degree murder in her killing.
In the days after the release of video of the attack, the stabbing and Brown’s lengthy criminal history – including convictions for armed robbery, larceny and breaking and entering – have been decried by the Trump administration and conservative politicians as an example of the violent crime they say plagues many Democrat-led cities across the United States.
The crime has become a rallying cry as the administration seeks to justify the deployment of federal troops to Los Angeles and Washington, DC, even as President Donald Trump threatens to deploy the National Guard to Chicago.
“North Carolina, and every State, needs LAW AND ORDER, and only Republicans will deliver it!,” Trump said on Truth Social. He called Brown a “career criminal.”
Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles and Brown’s family have both said the killing is in part due to failures of a court system that allowed Brown to re-enter the community despite a record of mental illness, and convictions for armed robbery, felony larceny and breaking and entering.
Ultimately, the paths of two people fatally converged – a woman who escaped violence only to face it in the US and a man whose family members believe he was failed by both the criminal justice and the health care system.