Leaders badly mishandled Charlotte killing

Long before the release of a video graphically depicting Iryna Zarutska being stabbed to death on a Charlotte train, state and local leaders should have publicly mourned her death and expressed outrage at so appalling a crime. Now they’re paying the price.

Every homicide is a tragedy. Every innocent victim deserves our sympathy. But within hours of Zarutska’s slaying on August 22, it should have been obvious this case would create more than a one-day story.

For starters, Zarutska was a Ukrainian refugee. She’d fled a country subject to nightly attacks by a terrorist state targeting civilians — only to be stabbed to death on her way home from work, in the very country where she thought she’d be safe.

The man charged with her murder, Decarlos Brown Jr., was well known to local authorities. His long rap sheet included arrests for breaking and entering, burglary, larceny, and other crimes. He’d resisted arrest, blown off court appearances, spent time in prison. His history of mental illness and violence led his mother to have him committed to a psychiatric facility, but he’d been released after two weeks.

Furthermore, this incident was only the latest in a series of crimes committed within the city’s transit system. As WCNC-TV reported during its initial coverage of Zarutska’s slaying, another person had been assaulted earlier in the week on a Charlotte bus. As it happens, Mecklenburg County voters will in November approve or reject a one-cent hike in the local sales tax for transportation, mostly for transit. That is also general-election day for Charlotte’s municipal offices.

So far, I’ve described a war-refugee story, an urban-crime story, a mental-illness story, a transit story, and a local-elections story. All raised important questions that merited serious, sustained attention from our leaders. It wasn’t until two weeks later, however, that Gov. Josh Stein issued a statement — after a horrifying video of the crime was released and, entirely predictably, went viral.

“I am heartbroken for the family of Iryna Zarutska, who lost their loved one to this senseless act of violence, and I am appalled by the footage of her murder,” he said. “We need more cops on the beat to keep people safe.”

“That’s why my budget calls for more funding to hire more well-trained police officers. I call upon the legislature to pass my law enforcement recruitment and retention package to address vacancies in our state and local agencies so they can stop these horrific crimes and hold violent criminals accountable.”

Stein’s rhetorical approach was ill-advised, to say the least. Decarlos Brown has been arrested many times. In almost every case, it seems, the charges were dropped or plea-bargained away. His one stay in prison was insufficient. Attempts to deter him, treat him, or at least keep him far away from potential victims had failed miserably.

These were failures by prosecutors and courts, not the police. To most readers and viewers, then, blaming the incident on a lack of officers — and using it to pressure the legislature for more state funds for a traditionally local responsibility — came across as tone-deaf.

As for Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, her early statement describing the killing as a “tragic situation that sheds light on problems with society safety nets related to mental health care” earned her widespread condemnation. After the video was released, Lyles chided media outlets for broadcasting it while also decrying the “senseless and tragic loss” of Zarutska and saying she was praying for the victim’s family and friends.

I’m of the belief that leaders ought to offer their “thoughts and prayers” to victims of crime and natural disasters, so that part didn’t bother me. But I also agree with National Review’s Charlie Cooke, who wrote that Lyles’s initial statement made her sound “far more interested in the feelings of criminals than of the people they torment.”

After years of highly publicized, highly politicized homicides, public officials have had ample opportunity to learn how to handle them. This ain’t it.

John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His books Mountain Folk, Forest Folk, and Water Folk combine epic fantasy and American history.