Ad suggests Charlotte stabbing suspect did no time. But he served nearly 6 years.
A new political ad attacking former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper makes a claim about the suspect in the Aug. 22 Charlotte light rail stabbing that lacks context.
The 30-second ad from U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton’s leadership political action committee also links Cooper’s policies to the fatal stabbing of Iryna Zarutska. Cooper, a Democrat, is running for U.S. Senate in 2026. He is expected to face former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley.
“On Roy Cooper’s watch, violent career criminals like DeCarlos Brown stayed out of jail even after 14 arrests,” a narrator says in the ad. Cooper was governor between 2017 and 2025.
It’s accurate that Brown was not put in jail after he was arrested in January on a misdemeanor charge of misusing 911. But guidelines did not call for him to be held in jail on that charge as he awaited trial.
Brown faces a Class 1 misdemeanor in that case, which has a maximum sentencing of 120 days, or about four months. However, even if given the maximum sentence by the magistrate who released Brown the same day he was charged, he would have been released before the fatal stabbing on Aug. 22.
Brown previously spent five years and seven months in prison, followed by a year of probation, for a February 2015 conviction on a charge of armed robbery.
Brown was released from Central Prison in Raleigh in 2020 after completing his sentence. Brown, who is homeless, is now being held without bond on the murder charge.
The ad from the Arkansas senator’s PAC comes as campaigning for the 2026 midterm election heats up. The Federal Election Commission says on its website that leadership PACs are commonly established by members of Congress to support candidates running for office.
The race to fill outgoing Republican Sen. Thom Tillis’s seat is getting national attention as Republicans and Democrats battle for control of the chamber, where the GOP currently holds 53 of the 100 seats.
Racial equity commission claim
The ad also said Cooper’s Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice “let dangerous criminals walk free” and Cooper’s policies as governor let people like Brown stay out of prison.
The News & Observer reported that the task force made recommendations on, among other things, implementing cashless bail for nonviolent misdemeanors and keeping pregnant women safe in prisons. Reports were published each year in December by the task force between 2020 and 2024.
PolitiFact, a fact-checking outlet, reported there was no evidence that the task force’s recommendations played a role in Brown’s release from prison in 2020. PolitiFact also said it was false that Cooper was responsible for the fatal stabbing of Zarutska.
The executive order that established the task force did not call for early release of convicted criminals and its first recommendations in December 2020 were not published until after Brown was released from prison.
The task force expired on Dec. 31 last year, one month before Charlotte police arrested Brown in January on the 911 misuse charge.
