Republicans are calling out leftist media misdirection after the brutal stabbing of 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, N.C. Instead of focusing on the killer—a repeat offender with a long criminal history—Democrats and the media have attacked conservatives for daring to highlight the obvious failure of soft-on-crime policies.
The suspect, Decarlos Brown, was a mentally unstable homeless man who should have been behind bars. Yet Democrats in Charlotte, led by Mayor Vi Lyles, rushed to frame the tragedy not as a failure of law enforcement but as a failure of “social safety nets related to mental healthcare.” Incredibly, Lyles initially failed to even mention Zarutska’s name, focusing instead on defending the criminal class.
Meanwhile, Axios lamented that Republicans were “drawing repeated attention” to the crime, as though demanding justice for a murdered young woman were somehow indecent. CNN’s Brian Stelter dismissed conservative outrage as “baldly racist,” even while admitting there were “legitimate questions about this so-called career criminal.”
But the truth is undeniable: Democrats and their media allies would rather police speech than criminals. As surveillance footage spreads online, it provides what Axios fears most—a “visual counterpoint” to the narrative that crime is down.
Charlotte’s leaders can issue statements about equity, but Zarutska’s death proves what Americans already know: protecting law-abiding citizens should come before coddling repeat offenders.
