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In the days before the assassination of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk, a shocking video of a stabbing in North Carolina last month had become the latest lightning rod for the debate on law and order in the US.
A prolific X user, Kirk posted about the murder of Iryna Zarutska several times on the last day of his life, his final post coming just hours before he became the victim of a violent crime himself.
Like Kirk’s assassination, Zarutska’s murder had been quickly politicised.
Conservative influencers and media outlets pounced on the horrifying murder, claiming it was an example of Democrats’ mismanagement of law and order and circulating the video widely on social media.
The crime quickly became part of the national law and order debate and a talking point on cable news. It wasn’t long until US President Donald Trump himself weighed in.
“For far too long, Americans have been forced to put up with Democrat run cities that set loose savage, bloodthirsty criminals to prey on innocent people,” Trump said in a video message posted to social media on Tuesday US time.
On the evening of August 22, Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee living in Charlotte, North Carolina, boarded the light rail after finishing her shift at a pizzeria.
Still in her uniform, she takes a seat in front of Decarlos Brown, a 34-year-old homeless man with a history of mental illness and criminality.
Viral footage that is too gruesome to publish in full shows Brown pulling out a pocket knife, rising to his feet, and viciously stabbing at Zarutska’s neck three times.
A still from the footage shows the second before Zarutska succumbed to her injuries, as she looks up at Brown in terror.
A viral image shows Iryna Zarutska’s terrified expression after she was stabbed three times in the neck before collapsing and succumbing to her injuries.
Her body then crumples to the ground. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Brown was quickly apprehended and charged with first-degree murder. His criminal history includes serving five years in prison for robbery with a deadly weapon, and several arrests for larceny, robbery with a dangerous weapon and communicating threats. He had previously been committed for schizophrenia.
Charlotte authorities have been facing intense criticism over the stabbing, with Trump and MAGA allies, including Kirk, placing blame on Democrats for “out of control crime” in “blue cities”.
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Charlotte, the most populous city in North Carolina, is currently led by a Democrat mayor and tends to vote progressively, hence the blue city tag. North Carolina is considered a red state with non-urban areas heavily favouring Republicans.
The debate has escalated amid Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Washington, and his threats to do the same in other Democrat-led cities, including Chicago and Baltimore.
AP reports that data shows violent crime in the US has decreased nationwide.
Trump first responded to the murder in a post on Truth Social on Monday that “Criminals like this need to be LOCKED UP”.
Kirk’s final X post before his death was a compilation video of debate on the issue, shared alongside the caption: “If we want things to change, it’s 100% necessary to politicise the senseless murder of Iryna Zarutska because it was politics that allowed a savage monster with 14 priors to be free on the streets to kill her.”
But much like Zarutka’s death, Kirk’s assassination quickly became a point of political division in the US.
After a conflict on the floor of the House of Representatives in Washington on Thursday over whether a bipartisan prayer for Kirk should be silent or spoken, Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, a former conservative influencer and close ally of Kirk, stood up to blame Democrats for the shooting.
“You all caused this,” she said, pointing angrily at the Democrats’ side of the chamber.
Other prominent voices on social media were quick to call for vengeance, even while the gunman remained at large and the motive unclear.
Enrique Tarrio, a former leader of the Proud Boys, an American neo-fascist militant group, shared a post on X calling for “war”.
In the wake of Kirk’s assassination, supporters have highlighted his final act in bringing attention to Zarutka’s murder as proof of his advocacy.
On Thursday, North Carolina legislators from the state’s Republican-controlled General Assembly announced that they would respond to the killing with a tranche of proposed laws designed to tighten pretrial release rules.
North Carolina state Senate leader Phil Berger speaks at a press conference while House Speaker Destin Hall listens and stands next to a photo of commuter train stabbing victim Iryna Zarutska.Credit: AP
The new laws would reduce the discretion given to local magistrates in their rulings on criminal suspects, after scrutiny focused on Brown’s release into the community after he was charged with misusing the 911 system in January. A magistrate released him on the misdemeanour without requiring bond on a written promise to return for court.
Speaking at a press conference, North Carolina House Speaker Destin Hal said Brown should never have been allowed to leave custody in January, given his criminal history and mental health concerns.
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“We must deliver justice for Iryna and the countless families across our state that have fallen victim to a justice system that does not support them and does not keep them safe,” Senate leader Phil Berger said at the same press conference.
Berger said the laws could also prevent the governor and executive branch more broadly from creating commissions that he claimed encouraged local policies favouring perpetrators, mentioning a taskforce established by former Democratic governor Roy Cooper following the death of George Floyd.
A GoFundMe page set up to raise money for Zarutska’s family said she had come to the United States to escape the war in Ukraine and was determined to build a safer life.
With AP, Reuters
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