President Donald Trump has waded into the brutal murder of a Ukrainian refugee on a train in North Carolina to lay the blame at the door of Democrats, whom he accuses of “refusing to put bad people in jail.”
Iryna Zarutska, who had only recently arrived in the U.S. from her war-torn homeland, boarded the train in South End, Charlotte, just after 9.45pm on Friday August 22 when she was attacked by another passenger.
In security footage of the incident, a man can be seen rising up from the seat behind Zarutska and fatally stabbing her with a switchblade before fleeing through the carriage at the next station. Decarlos Brown Jr, a 34-year-old homeless man reportedly suffering from schizophrenia, was arrested six days later and charged with first-degree murder.
“I have seen the horrific video of a beautiful, young Ukrainian refugee, who came to America to escape the vicious War in Ukraine, and was innocently riding the Metro in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she was brutally ambushed by a mentally deranged lunatic,” President Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday.
“The perpetrator was a well known career criminal, who had been previously arrested and released on CASHLESS BAIL in January, a total of 14 TIMES. What the hell was he doing riding the train, and walking the streets? Criminals like this need to be LOCKED UP.”
Trump, who is currently promoting an anti-crime message, continued: “The blood of this innocent woman can literally be seen dripping from the killer’s knife, and now her blood is on the hands of the Democrats who refuse to put bad people in jail, including Former Disgraced Governor and ‘Wannabe Senator’ Roy Cooper.
“North Carolina, and every State, needs LAW AND ORDER, and only Republicans will deliver it! Additionally, where is the outrage from the Mainstream Media on this horrible tragedy? VOTE FOR MICHAEL WHATLEY FOR UNITED STATES SENATE, HE WON’T LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN!”
The president’s attack on the state’s former Democratic governor Roy Cooper, who is now running for the U.S. Senate, comes after the likes of Republican National Committee adviser Danielle Alvarez took to conservative media to accuse him of being “soft on crime” during his two-term tenure. A spokesperson for Cooper told Politico Zarutska’s killing was “a heartbreaking, despicable act of evil.”
As Trump suggests, the suspect in the case does have an extensive criminal history that includes armed robbery, breaking and entering and larceny convictions dating back to 2011.
He spent six years in jail from 2014 to 2020 and was most recently arrested in January 2025 for misusing the 911 system after he allegedly submitted a complaint about police officers not taking a medical issue seriously. He had been awaiting a court-ordered mental health examination since July.
Since the shocking incident was first reported, GoFundMe has been forced to take down a number of fundraisers in support of Brown’s legal defense, started on the basis that he had been “failed” by the state’s public-facing institutions, following an outcry.
“GoFundMe’s Terms of Service explicitly prohibit fundraisers that raise money for the legal defense of anyone formally charged with an alleged violent crime,” a spokesperson for the platform has said.
“Consistent with this longstanding policy, the fundraisers have been removed from the platform, and the donors who contributed have been fully refunded.”
Conservatives on social media have meanwhile attempted to politicize the case along racial lines, accusing the media of failing to cover the murder of a white woman by a Black assailant with the same degree of zeal it showed when George Floyd was killed by white police officers in Minneapolis in May 2020.
Others have hit back by arguing it is grossly insensitive to attempt to exploit a tragedy of this nature for political gain.
“Stop using a dead Ukrainian woman as fodder for your rage baiting, your conspiracy theories,” one user wrote on X Monday. “Say her name. This was Iryna Zarutska. She had an art degree from a Kyiv college and was working on her English to become a veterinary assistant. Her life was cut short by pure evil, and her story of joy and hope should be told.”
