Mary Rooke Commentary and Analysis Writer
Democrats have once again been handed the perfect opportunity to show they aren’t the party of violence, but instead they are staying silent on what is quickly becoming the nation’s biggest story.
Surveillance footage, released Friday by the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS), reveals a horrifying moment when a repeat violent offender fatally stabbed 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, Iryna Zarutska, in what the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department say was an unprovoked attack.
Zarutska is seen quietly on the video sitting by herself on a Charlotte light rail train when a man — who police say is 34-year-old Decarlos Brown Jr. — stands up holding a knife, then stabs her three times, at least once in the neck.
🚨 Surveillance video shows a homeless ex-con fatally stabbing 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light rail.
Decarlos Brown Jr. has been charged in the stabbing.
Brown has a lengthy rap sheet and previously served 5 years in prison for armed robbery. pic.twitter.com/ruz7kBfbFz
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 8, 2025
Brown, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, has a lengthy criminal history of violent acts, including armed robbery, felony larceny, breaking and entering, and shoplifting, according to WBTV and the New York Post.
After an arrest for abusing 9-1-1 emergency services in January, Brown was ordered to take a competency evaluation and released without bond. The forensic evaluation was never completed, and Brown was allowed to roam the streets without penalty despite his reported violent tendencies, according to Queen City News.
Cases like Brown’s are all too prevalent in metropolitan cities run by Democrats across the country. Leniency from left-wing district attorneys and judges, who put more emphasis on being kind to the violent criminal than justice for the victims, perpetuates a deadly cycle. (Sign up for Mary Rooke’s weekly newsletter here!)
This is a clear-cut example of Democratic Party policies at work. Here is a repeat violent offender with a diagnosed mental health issue allowed to take the revolving door, in and out of custody, which ends up with an innocent woman being killed.
Amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on crime in Washington, D.C., former Democratic strategist Dan Turrentine advised Aug. 11 during an episode of “The Morning Meeting” that his party should welcome Trump’s move to combat violent criminals.
“As a party, what I would do is say, ‘Look, I’m going to introduce legislation for 100,000 new police officers paid for with tariff revenue. This is a problem in New Orleans, in Memphis, in St. Louis, red cities, blue cities. Americans don’t feel safe,” Turrentine said. “The last like six or seven years for whatever reason, COVID, etc., crime has kind of come back to where it was in the 80s and stuff where people who live in cities don’t feel very safe anymore. We should embrace that. We should be on the side of common sense.”
Democrats did not take Turrentine’s advice. Instead, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) insisted that Trump’s crime crackdown was a “political liability” for Republicans.
“It’s about grabbing power however they can,” Insha Rahman, director of Vera Action, told fellow Democrats. “And this is a vulnerability — this tough-on-crime rhetoric and actions, which historically, I think Democrats have seen as a win for Republicans. It is actually a liability right now.”
“There’s an opportunity right now with this political liability, this unconstitutional takeover of our cities for Democrats to own safety,” Rahman added.
Democratic California Rep. Ted Lieu seemed to take Rahman’s advice, denouncing Trump’s crime prevention Sept. 3, comparing it to a brutal totalitarian regime.
“If you want a police state with military folks running around all over the place, well, sure, that’s going to reduce crime — but that’s not the free and open society we in America want to live in,” Lieu said. “I’m sure there’s really low crime in North Korea because they have military troops all over the place.”
“The United States military is designed to fight foreign adversaries, not designed to be unleashed on the American people,” he added.
🚨 DCNF Reporter @AndiNapier points out the fact that crime rates have DROPPED significantly since Pres. Trump’s federal takeover of D.C. law enforcement
Reps Pete Aguilar & Ted Lieu don’t seem too happy 🤔 pic.twitter.com/EVUTd6IWnK
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 3, 2025
This is how Democrats process the pain regular Americans feel with the rising crime in major U.S. cities. An October 2024 Gallup poll of American voters found that 75 percent said violent crime was extremely or very important to them. (ROOKE: Republicans Rally Around Rising Star In Senate Race. Let’s Not Get Too Excited Yet)
Most Americans see the brutal murder of Zarutska and immediately connect it to Democratic policies. Still, despite this, other than local Democrats like North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein and Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, no statements from other major North Carolina Democrats or national party leaders as of late Monday morning have even mentioned the murder.
If Democrats were smart, they would use Zarutska’s murder as a segue to call for harsher crimes against violent offenders and demand an end to the revolving door for criminals running rampant in their cities. It seems they are allergic to defending victims.
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