CMPD said officers followed policy before light rail stabbing. They didn’t.
Charlotte police officers violated their own policies when they failed to connect DeCarlos Brown Jr. with mental health resources before he was arrested in the light rail stabbing of Iryna Zarutksa, a review by The Charlotte Observer shows.
Brown, a 35-year-old homeless and mentally ill man, faces state and federal charges in the August train killing of the 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee. Eight months before he boarded a train traveling through Charlotte’s South End with a knife, he called 911 asking officers to investigate the “man-made material” he said was controlling him.
That’s the same thing he said after he was arrested in Zarutska’s death, according to a recorded jail call published by the New York Post.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said in a November news release that the two officers and sergeant who responded to Brown’s Jan. 19, 2025, call handled the situation “in accordance with department protocols and with a focus on de-escalation and public safety.”
But they broke protocol.
Police told Brown they couldn’t help him but suggested he seek medical help. When he again called 911 shortly after, looking for another batch of officers who might be able to help, he was charged with misusing 911.
CMPD policies don’t direct officers to tell people in a mental health crisis to take themselves to a hospital.
According to publicly listed directives, officers were supposed to have connected Brown with mental health help. The policies, which were updated in 2023, provide a list of different services or officials police could have tried.
A state House committee on Monday will discuss concerns that Charlotte public safety has dwindled with the “de-prioritization” of law enforcement. The Republican-led committee has used Zarutska’s death and a December train stabbing as fuel into its probe.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department leaders now under newly hired Chief Estella Patterson declined requests to be interviewed for this story in December, January and February.
CMPD policies on mental health crises
Out of more than 700 pages of CMPD directives, nine are dedicated to helping officers identify people who need “assistance and/or access to community mental health resources.”
Officers are supposed to manage “situations in a manner that minimizes the risk to all persons involved” and facilitate “medical care for persons as soon as practical.”
If an officer is interacting with someone they think may have a mental illness, they are supposed to:
- Recognize that the person may be overwhelmed by external and internal stimuli.
- Remain calm and avoid overreacting.
- Be helpful, patient, and accepting but firm and professional.
- Understand that a rational discussion may not take place.
- Recognize that a person’s delusions or hallucinations are very real for them.
An officer who first responded to Brown’s 9:40 p.m. call did this. Body-worn camera videos published after the Observer asked a judge to order their release show CMPD’s entire interaction with Brown.
Two officers spent 20 minutes with Brown. Brown told them he didn’t know where he was when he woke up, that he’d been human trafficked and that something had for years been controlling him.
One officer handled most of the interaction. He talked calmly and slowly and learned that Brown was diagnosed with schizophrenia. At 9:57 p.m., he asked Brown if he was taking medicine.
He wasn’t.
“I think maybe if you took it,” the officer said, “it could get rid of some of the stuff.”
Despite the officer’s reasoning, Brown insisted: Officers needed to investigate the material. He also insisted on talking to a sergeant.
CMPD polices say that if an officer is interacting with someone in a mental health crisis (defined in CMPD policies as a person having “delusions”), they are to run down a list of options, including requesting:
- an officer trained in crisis intervention.
- the Community Policing Crisis Response Team.
- the Mecklenburg County Mobile Response Team.
Those officials are then supposed to:
- help stabilize the situation.
- complete a mental health assessment.
- refer the person to Alliance Health (a managed care organization for uninsured people in Mecklenburg County) or other “vital services.”
- follow up.
That did not happen in Brown’s case on Jan. 19, 2025.
It is unclear if any of the officers who responded were trained in crisis intervention. CMPD declined to say.
If they were, department policies say the officers still would have been in charge of connecting Brown with the appropriate resources. And if no trained officer or other specialized team was available, the officers on scene were supposed to “take appropriate action.”
According to CMPD’s November news release (published after the body-worn camera videos were released), Brown had made similar calls in 2024. Officers and CMPD’s Community Policing Crisis Response Team — which includes clinicians — responded to three of those calls, the department wrote.
“Services and assistance were offered but ultimately declined by Brown,” CMPD says.
In January 2025, though, officers did not offer help.
A sergeant who identified himself as Hawkins arrived at 10 p.m. — three minutes after the one officer started to suggest Brown take medication. The sergeant shut down the interaction.
He said Brown had already talked to CMPD about the material. He said he couldn’t do anything.
Then Brown started yelling, pleading for the sergeant to read a sheet of paper where Brown said he wrote down everything that had happened to him.
“If you’re gonna shout at me, I’m gonna walk away,” the sergeant responded. “I came here as a favor.”
As the sergeant walked away, he told the other officers — not Brown — “if he calls again we’re going to arrest him for misuse of 911.”
Before they could return to their cars, Brown dialed those three numbers once more. He requested a new batch of officers.
The sergeant returned, handcuffed Brown and charged him with a crime.
Global reaction to Charlotte stabbing
The magistrate who was working in the jail that night released Brown on a written promise to appear, citing the “nature and circumstances of offense.” The Observer previously reported she was following rules crafted by the Republican-controlled legislature when she opted to release Brown on the low-level charge of misusing 911.
But when video of Brown stabbing Zarutska was shared across the world, Republican Party leaders as far up as President Donald Trump fixated on Brown’s January arrest — his last arrest before the stabbing.
Trump in a statement said “a Democrat judge” left Brown “free to slaughter an innocent woman.” He also called Brown a “deranged monster.”
Before that arrest, Brown had served more than five years in prison after being convicted of armed robbery, breaking and entering and larceny in 2015.
N.C. Republicans question Charlotte
In December, the state House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform sent letters demanding an active investigative file in Brown’s state murder case. They wanted it as a part of a probe into “whether public safety has been subordinated to ideological initiatives at the expense of residents, transit users, and law-abiding communities.”
The committee said it was concerned that Charlotte has seen a “documented increase in violent crime” at the same time as the “defunding, de-prioritization, or restructuring of traditional law enforcement and public safety functions.”
Violent crime in Charlotte decreased in 2025, and the city last year increased the police budget by nine percent, the Observer previously reported.
Committee chairs asked Chief Patterson, Mecklenburg District Attorney Spencer Merriweather, Mayor Vi Lyles, City Manager Marcus Jones, Sheriff Garry McFadden, County Manager Mike Bryant and Charlotte Area Transit System Interim CEO Brent Cagle to testify at a hearing in front of the committee at 9 a.m. Monday.
