MSM Slow To Report Brutal Murder of Woman In Charlotte

Officials with the Charlotte Area Transit System released surveillance video Friday of a deadly stabbing on the light rail.  The video shows how quickly the random attack unfolded on Aug. 22 and how passengers rushed to help the victim, 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska.

WSOC Channel 9 was one of multiple news outlets to request this video with the purpose of better understanding the timeline shared by authorities in the days after the attack.

Decarlos Brown stabbed Zarutska to death that Friday night, according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department and CATS. Brown was seen wearing a red-orange sweatshirt on the train that was going to the East/West Boulevard Station, which had a lot of people on it.

Zarutska was living in Charlotte after fleeing the war in Ukraine.  She boarded the train and sat in an aisle seat in the row in front of him while Brown sat at the window.

She was wearing headphones, and the two had no interaction, whatsoever.  She was scrolling on her phone the entire ride.

Brown showed little to no emotion on the ride and rested his head on the window. CATS had said before that he looked like any other transit rider. About a minute before the fatal stabbing, there was shift in his behavior. Brown started to fidget with his hand and his eyes widened.

He actually rested his head on the glass just seconds before he took a knife out of his pocket, stood up and immediately stabbed Iryna Zarutska.

In Zarutska’s final moments, an angle shows Brown slowly walking toward the front of the train.

A man ran to tell the light rail operator what happened and to stop. About 2 minutes and 5 seconds later when the train came to a stop at the East/West station, Brown stepped off the train. CMPD arrested him on the platform.

Brown is in jail murder charges.

Dear CNN, WaPo, NYT, ABC, NBC etc etc

If you want to know why your ratings are in the tank and no one likes you, look no further than the brutal murder of Iryna Zarutska who moved to US to escape war in Ukraine, a story you refuse to tell. Sadly she couldn’t survive the… pic.twitter.com/xX0ke82dRb

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) September 7, 2025

The murder received immediate and extensive coverage from local Charlotte outlets—such as WBTV (first reports August 23, detailed affidavits August 28, video analysis September 5), WCNC (victim background August 25, court updates August 29, mayor's statement September 6), WSOC-TV (timeline and passenger reactions September 6), Spectrum News (arrest August 29, video release September 5), WCCB (arrest August 28, video September 5), WFAE (mayor's response August 27), and Queen City News (video context September 5)—which broke the story, obtained court documents, and pushed for the footage release. 

National coverage, however, was notably delayed and limited, sparking widespread criticism on social media and from conservative commentators who accused mainstream outlets of downplaying the story due to its racial dynamics (white female victim, Black male perpetrator), potential mental health/homelessness angles, and implications for urban crime in Democrat-led cities. 

Fox News reported on August 25, focusing on Zarutska's refugee status and community fundraising, followed by Newsweek on September 7 (video details, tying to national crime debates amid Trump's policies). Outlets like CNN, MSNBC, ABC News, NBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, PBS, USA Today, Reuters, and Axios had no dedicated stories by September 8, despite extensive prior coverage of similar cases like the 2023 Daniel Penny subway chokehold in New York (where a Black homeless man died after attacking a white ex-Marine; outlets like NYT published over 100 articles).