CATS breaks down public safety plans after fatal light rail stabbing in South End
Charlotte transportation leaders say they’re striving to improve safety on public transit, efforts that began before a murder on the city’s light rail.
Interim Charlotte Area Transit System CEO Brent Cagle addressed staffing, fare enforcement and safety challenges alongside security staff at a special meeting of the Metropolitan Transit Commission Tuesday. Transit officials gave the same presentation Monday night to the Charlotte City Council.
The meetings followed a fatal stabbing on the LYNX Blue Line light rail in South End on Aug. 22. Police identified the victim as Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee. Decarlos Brown, 34, is charged with murder in the case.
A police affidavit said Zarutska and Brown did not interact on the train before the stabbing and alleges Brown struck Zarutska three times. Witnesses, according to the affidavit, pointed police to Brown standing on the outbound light rail platform when CMPD responded to the scene.
Cagle described the killing as “a senseless act of random violence.” He said CATS and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police increased patrols and personnel along the Blue Line since the stabbing.
But improving safety on CATS buses and trains was a priority before the incident, Cagle said.
Charlotte transit safety changes
He highlighted the creation of a new executive position — chief safety and security officer — and CATS consolidating all of its security contracts to one company, Professional Security Services, in recent months.
CATS boosted spending on security from $5.8 million in 2023 to $18.4 million in 2025, Cagle said, funding “a significant increase in personnel.” The agency is also working to upgrade its camera system and look into new technologies, including artificial intelligence, to improve surveillance and responsiveness.
CATS will ask the City Council on Sept. 22 to approve a new “mutual aid agreement” with CMPD to make it easier for CATS security personnel to act on safety concerns at bus and train stations.
Checking CATS tickets
The transit authority is also stepping up fare enforcement, with more security officers checking for tickets. It also plans to deploy staff specifically focused on customer fare checks, Cagle said.
“It is not possible in a system our size to check every ticket for every passenger for every ride,” he said. “So the goal is to have a visible presence so that people, more often than not, will see security or will have their tickets checked.”
Cagle told the Charlotte City Council on Monday CATS doesn’t believe Brown paid for a ticket to board the light rail before the stabbing. The case, Cagle told reporters after the MTC meeting, “certainly underlines the need” to improve CATS’ fare policies.
The ongoing changes are part of a transition from a “corporate security model” to a “transit police approach,” Cagle said.
Homelessness and mental illness
Still, CATS staff said, rising rates of homelessness and mental illness make it more difficult to keep transit safe.
Cagle told reporters after the MTC meeting he’d like to put together a “transit security summit” featuring law enforcement, community members and nonprofits “to think about strategies holistically, because no one of us will solve this problem.”
“We have an opportunity here in the aftermath of this terrible event to seize that opportunity and move forward in a better position,” he said.
