CHARLOTTE, N.C. - A 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee named Iryna Zarutska was stabbed to death on a Charlotte, N.C., light rail train last month, an unprovoked attack that President Donald Trump appears to be using to further exemplify the "need" for federal troops to be deployed in other large cities, like in D.C.
Trump denounced the killer, calling him a "madman" and a "lunatic" during a speech on Monday.
"It's right on the tape, not really watchable because it's so horrible," the president said of the surveillance footage. "She's just sitting there."
"When you have horrible killings, you have to take horrible actions," he added.
Dig deeper:
Zarutska fled Ukraine three years ago with her mother and two siblings to escape the war with Russia, according to her obituary. She attended Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, worked at a local pizza parlor and planned on becoming a veterinary assistant.
The attack occurred just before 10 p.m. on Aug. 22; a caller phoned the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department to report that a woman had been stabbed in the throat, according to Fox News.
Video of the attack shows Zarutska boarding the train and sitting down across from the suspect who would ultimately kill her just minutes later, according to court documents.
What they're saying:
"The train travels for approximately four and half minutes before the suspect pulls a knife from his pocket, unfolds the knife, pauses, then stands up and strikes at the victim three times," a police detective wrote in an affidavit.
"Blood visibly drips on the floor as the defendant walks away from the victim. The victim goes unresponsive shortly after the attack. The defendant is the assailant in the video. There appears to be no interaction between the victim and defendant," the affidavit states.
The suspect has been identified as Decarlos Brown, 34. He's been charged with first-degree murder, and a judge has ordered that he be evaluated for 60 days at a local hospital. He has an impressive criminal history which includes convictions for breaking and entering, armed robbery and felony larceny, according to Fox News. State records show that he was incarcerated for more than five years for robbery with a dangerous weapon.
Earlier this year, Brown was also charged with misuse of 911 after he allegedly told police to investigate a "man-made" material that controlled when he ate, spoke, and walked, court documents show.
Big picture view:
In the first half of 2025, Charlotte, N.C. experienced a 25% reduction in violent crime, according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. This figure includes homicides, robberies, rapes and aggravated assaults, encompassing shootings, and compares violent crime data from January through June 2025 with the same period in 2024.
Despite this, the president vowed to "get to the end of violent crime" in the U.S. on Monday. This is something his administration claims to be doing in the nation's capital.
In August, Trump invoked the D.C. Home Rule Act to place the Metropolitan Police Department under federal control, citing the need to combat violent crime in the District. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Monday that 2,120 arrests have been made, and 214 illegal guns have been seized since the start of the federal takeover.
"Seventy-two additional arrests made yesterday in Washington, D.C. -- including another suspected Tren de Aragua gang member," Bondi posted on X Monday morning. "Our law enforcement partners continue to make D.C. safe again."
The federal surge in D.C. is set to expire on Wednesday, and Mayor Muriel Bowser made it clear on Monday that the increased number of federal officers and Guard troops in the District likely isn't going anywhere -- and no one should see the order's expiration as a green light to commit crime. After all, the end of the emergency won't end the president's authority to order the National Guard onto D.C.'s streets or deploy additional federal law enforcement.
"What ends when the federal emergency ends is the requirement per the Home Rule Charter that the D.C. mayor is compelled to provide MPD service at the president's request," Bowser said.
Trump has threatened to take similar actions in other large, Democratic-led cities. Last week, he said that he plans to direct federal law enforcement intervention in Chicago and Baltimore, but offered no timeline. He's proposed doing the same in New Orleans, as well.
"We're not going to war. We're going to clean up our cities," Trump told reporters on Sunday as he left the White House. "We're going to clean them up so they don't kill five people every weekend. That's not war, that's common sense."
It's worth noting that like Charlotte, N.C., where Zarutska was killed, crime is down in all three cities.
Trump has called Baltimore "one of the most unsafe places anywhere in the world." Both Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Brandon Scott, Baltimore's mayor, have pushed back against that statement, noting that the city's homicide rate is down to the lowest it's been in half a century. Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has opposed the move in Chicago, but Trump says that he'd "love to do it." And although Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has welcomed the offer of troops for New Orleans, Democrats in the blue city have been quick to push back.
Helena Moreno, vice president of the New Orleans City Council, said in a statement that the city has seen an "unprecedented reduction in crime and violence." She then accused the president of using "scare tactics...ultimately leading to the misuse of public funds and resources to attempt to score political points."
Whether federal troops will be sent to these cities remains to be seen.