There are moments that cut through the noise of politics and statistics — moments that shatter carefully constructed narratives. The video of 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska being fatally stabbed on a Charlotte light-rail car is one of those moments.
For years, Democrats and their media allies have leaned on the same talking point: “crime is down.” And technically, some numbers show a dip from pandemic-era highs. But videos don’t lie — and the sight of a repeat offender plunging a knife into a young woman who fled war to find safety in America is far more powerful than any press release from a blue-state governor.
Is this the FIRST reporting on this Axios is doing?
The only reason MAGA is sharing this is because MSM won’t.
Literally any sane person regardless of politics should be angered by the story https://t.co/qLfgkau5Eo
— Tim Pool (@Timcast) September 8, 2025
That’s why the footage dominated Trump-friendly media all weekend. MAGA influencers lit up social platforms, Elon Musk pushed it to 225 million X users, and figures from Stephen Miller to Charlie Kirk to Sen. Mike Lee demanded answers. Trump himself told reporters he’d “know all about it” within a day and promised the issue wouldn’t go away. A senior adviser summed it up: “Crime is not a data thing — it’s a feeling thing.”
And he’s right. When Americans watch this kind of horror unfold on camera, the “crime is down” line sounds like gaslighting. Nobody cares about academic charts when they’re worried about riding the subway or walking to their car after dark.
You don’t hate the media enough pic.twitter.com/7ethnFn1iX
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) September 8, 2025
The politics here are brutal. Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley tied the killing directly to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, arguing that Cooper’s soft-on-crime posturing helped put Zarutska’s killer, Decarlos Brown Jr., back on the streets. Brown had racked up a rap sheet of armed robbery, larceny, and more before his release. Cooper’s team insists Whatley is “lying” — but the optics are disastrous: a career criminal free to kill while Democrats busy themselves with “systemic racism” task forces.
Add to that the racial dynamic — a Black suspect, a white victim — and the selective outrage becomes even harder to ignore. The left turned Daniel Penny, a Marine who restrained a threatening homeless man on the New York subway, into a cause célèbre. But when Zarutska, a young woman with everything to live for, is slaughtered on camera? Silence, euphemism, and excuses.
Axios has found the true evil in the vicious murder of Iryna Zarutska by a black career criminal who has been released from jail 14 times by woke activist judges:
1. MAGA influencers who are “drawing repeated attention” on “Trump-friendly social media.”
2. The increased amount… pic.twitter.com/2wskNXfNYn
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 8, 2025
Democrats can’t hide behind declining crime stats anymore. The flood of surveillance footage and viral clips has created a new political battlefield, one where emotion, perception, and lived reality outweigh sterile data. Every leaked video of a stabbing, a shooting, or a random attack becomes a campaign ad for Republicans and a liability for Democrats.
