(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles has shifted her rhetoric following mounting backlash over her public handling of the vicious murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska.
Lyles, a Democrat, had failed to mention Zarutska’s name after her fatal stabbing, allegedly carried out by 34-year-old Decarlos Brown on Aug. 22.
Authorities have described Brown as a career criminal with a long rap sheet. He is now charged with first-degree murder.
By contrast, Lyles focused on the gruesome video of Zarutska’s death, thanking her “media partners” for not re-publishing or airing it.
Worse still, Lyles suggested that the city “will never arrest our way out [of] issues such as homelessness and mental health.”
On Monday, however, Lyles redirected her criticism toward state judges who repeatedly spared Brown from facing tough sentences.
“Over the past several weeks as our community has worked to understand this, what we know is that this was a tragic failure by the courts and magistrates,” Lyles admitted in a public statement. “Our police officers arrest people only to have them quickly released, which undermines our ability to protect our community and ensure safety.”
After being ripped to shreds for her first statement on Iryna Zartuska's murder in which she commanded everyone to have "compassion" for violent people, Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles now says it was a "a tragic failure by the courts and magistrates" and calls for a "bipartisan… https://t.co/A9SwcaVa0m
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 8, 2025
She urged a bipartisan solution to address “repeat offenders who do not face consequences for their actions and those who cannot get treatment for their mental illness and are allowed to be on the streets.”
Warning: Graphic footage below.
She fled the war, only to be killed in the United States.
Twenty-three-year-old Ukrainian Irina Zarutska was fatally stabbed in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The attacker was a 34-year-old man named Decarlos Brown Jr., who has since been detained. pic.twitter.com/bsRktu6NxC— Marta Havryshko (@HavryshkoMarta) September 6, 2025
North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, also a Democrat, echoed Lyles’s remarks, calling for more police to be “on the beat to keep people safe.”
But President Donald Trump blasted state and local Democrats for allowing Brown to remain free despite more than a dozen arrests.
“What the hell was he doing riding the train, and walking the streets? Criminals like this need to be LOCKED UP,” Trump wrote on X.
“The blood of this innocent woman can literally be seen dripping from the killer’s knife, and now her blood is on the hands of the Democrats who refuse to put bad people in jail, including Former Disgraced Governor and ‘Wannabe Senator’ Roy Cooper,” Trump added.
Brown is currently being held in a psychiatric facility.
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) September 8, 2025
