Killing on the light rail should jolt Charlotte awake | Opinion
No murder is acceptable, but some shock the conscience more than others. Random killings of young people in places where they should have every expectation of safety leave us shaken in a way others do not.
This week, Charlotte should be shaken to its core. Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old who fled Ukraine to escape the war, was brutally stabbed to death in the heart of South End while riding the light rail train. She came here to get away from violence, yet she found it on our transit system. It is a tragedy that cries out for answers.
One-hundred fifty-seven new people move here every day, boosters like to remind us. Part of what has made Charlotte special is that it has always felt smaller — more tightly knit, more humane — than other big cities. If tragedies like this become something we simply move past, then we will have lost part of our soul.
Beyond numbers and empty reassurances
Yes, we should wait for more facts to emerge. There is no conceivable circumstance, though, in which this is not a terrible tragedy that demands change. Yet the civic response has felt strangely blasé.
Three days after the stabbing, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department published a graphic bragging about “the real picture” of crime in our city, claiming that homicides and armed robberies are down 30% from last year.
That may be true, or it may not be. But Iryna Zarutska’s murder makes a mockery of the comfort we try to take in statistics. It reveals something deeper: a justice system that tolerates career criminals on the streets, and a transit system that shrugs at disorder until it turns deadly.
Too often, Charlotte’s leaders have talked about crime as if it’s a perception problem. Uptown business groups launch PR campaigns, new slogans and billboard ads to assure people it’s safe. They talk about vibrancy and image, about whether visitors feel comfortable. But this is not a marketing issue. It’s a human one.
In a statement, Mayor Vi Lyles said that Charlotte is “by and large” a safe city, and that CATS is “by and large” a safe transit system. That framing is part of the problem. “By and large” is cold comfort when it’s your daughter who doesn’t come home. Safety is not something you average out.
A city worthy of its people treats every rider’s life as non-negotiable, not a rounding error.
What must change now
Councilwoman Dimple Ajmera struck a similar note at Monday’s meeting, calling for steps to “restore the confidence in our system.” But riders don’t need confidence campaigns. They need to know that stepping onto a train or bus won’t put their lives at risk. Confidence will return only after safety is real.
There will be a time soon to talk more seriously about legislative fixes: more assistant district attorneys, more judges, more tools to close the loopholes. I spoke with District Attorney Spencer Merriweather this week. He is limited in what he can say about this particular case, but he made clear that the system is full of gaps.
Repeat offenders who pile up “lower-level” charges can still cycle in and out. Defendants with severe mental illness can sometimes be released when they’re found incompetent to stand trial, even if everyone knows they’re a danger to the public. “It is unreal,” Merriweather told me. He’s right.
In the meantime, there are things to do immediately. I spoke with former Mayor Pat McCrory, who pioneered both transit and public safety over seven terms as mayor. He put it plainly: “Public safety has to be the No. 1 objective in transit, and it obviously is not.”
When Charlotte chose not to install fare gates, it made a different bargain: enforce payment another way. Failing to do so creates an environment where rules don’t matter, turning trains and platforms into places to loiter, and in some cases, to prey.
That culture of permissiveness has to end. Riders should know every person on that train has paid to be there. CMPD and CATS must post a visible security presence on platforms and trains. And judges must stop releasing violent offenders back into the community on little more than a promise.
Don’t have all the answers
Two decades ago, I was a student at UNC-Chapel Hill when our student body president, Eve Carson, was abducted from her home, robbed and murdered in cold blood. Eve’s killers were both career criminals allowed to roam the streets under a lax criminal justice system. Her death shook Chapel Hill, and it forced lawmakers to act. Reforms followed, including stricter oversight of felons on probation and parole.
Charlotte faces a moment no less serious. If we shrug off the death of Iryna Zarutska — if we decide this is just another tragic headline in a fast-growing city — then we will have signaled that safety is no longer our first priority.
I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But if Charlotte doesn’t rally to find them, then things are deeply rotten here. We cannot outsource this to PR campaigns or wish away the fear. We need urgency and the shared conviction that people should be able to walk their streets and ride their buses and trains without fear.
Iryna Zarutska deserved better from us. Her death is a terrible loss. And if it doesn’t jolt Charlotte back to its senses, then we will have failed her twice.
Contributing columnist Andrew Dunn is the publisher of the Longleaf Politics newsletter, which offers thoughtful analysis of North Carolina politics and policy from a conservative perspective. He can be reached at andrew@longleafpol.com.