Decarlos Brown Jr., a dangerous repeat felon who was mentally unstable, stabbed Iryna Zarutska in the neck with a pocket knife. Surveillance footage from the train (pictured above) shows the shocked woman, still seated, looking up at her attacker. Moments later she slumps over, bleeding to death.
The preventable fatal stabbing happened in Democrat-led Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, where voters chose Kamala Harris over Donald Trump 65% to 32%. It is also a county where Democrat politicians publicly consider criminals to be the real victims of society, which allowed Zarutska's attacker to sit behind her.
Discussing the fatal stabbing on American Family Radio, former assistant district attorney Abe Hamilton said Brown was walking the streets because Democrats wanted him to be free.
“Generally speaking,” Hamilton said, “we have jurisdictions that do not enforce the law at the greatest extent possible.”
Hamilton is currently general counsel at the American Family Association, the parent ministry of American Family Radio and American Family News.
Dems embraced criminal-friendly policies
According to a related Fox News story, North Carolina Democrats from a former governor to the Charlotte City Council have embraced a “progressive” approach to policing and crime going back to 2020. That liberal ideology views criminals, in particular minorities, as defendants who deserve sympathy because the justice system is race-based and unfair.
Among its radical approaches to crime, the Charlotte City Council launched a “reimagining policing” initiative and then-Gov. Roy Cooper created a "Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice.” That task force released a 14-page plan of action that recommended eliminating cash bail, "deemphasizing" certain felony crimes, and prioritizing "restorative justice,” Fox reported.
The Fox story also points out Mecklenburg County has received millions of dollars in grant funding from a liberal non-profit that helped the county implement its “reimagining policy” plans. Those funds, $3.8 million in all, came from the MacArthur Foundation and its “Safety + Justice Challenge” initiative that focused on reducing the jail population for minority defendants.
After the fatal stabbing, Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles followed that soft-on-crime pattern by warning about “stigmatizing” people who suffer with mental health.
Mayor Lyles, however, was accusing critics of “stigmatizing” a violent felon whose crimes go back more than a decade and include convictions for larceny, breaking and entering, and robbery with a dangerous weapon.
At the time of the train attack, Brown had been free since January after being charged with misusing the 911 emergency call system. A judge allowed him to sign a promise to appear, a court document and form of cashless bail, that allowed him to walk free.
Reacting to the stabbing attack, North Carolina resident Dr. Alex McFarland tells AFN the fault lies with the judge, Teresa Stokes. He points out even the mother of Brown testified her son was mentally unstable and dangerous, and he should be kept in jail.
"Decarlos Brown Jr. should have been behind bars," McFarland, who previously lived in Charlotte, says. "The blood of this 23-year-old woman is on the hands of Teresa Stokes."
According to Hamilton, a defense attorney should take the history of their client, the defendant, into consideration when requesting bail.
“People often say, 'does the punishment fit the crime?' Well actually, that really isn't the question,” Hamilton insisted. “The question should be, 'does the punishment fit the criminal,' because when you're assessing punishment, when a person is guilty of a particular crime, you have to take into consideration their history.”
That common-sense approach to crime and repeat criminals has been rejected by liberal prosecutors, Hamilton said. They choose freedom for a dangerous defendant over keeping the public safe.
“This is just one of those scenarios where you have a combination in my mind, frankly, I think some demonic influence, and just evil,” Hamilton said. “Evil that was brought to bear on this issue.”
