(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The family of Iryna Zarutska, the Ukrainian refugee who was stabbed to death on a Charlotte train last year, has filed a lawsuit over the matter.
In a lawsuit filed Friday in Mecklenburg County, Zarutska’s uncle, Frank Haskell, blamed the city of Charlotte and the security firm for the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS), Professional Security Services, for his niece’s murder.
According to the lawsuit, no guards from Professional Security Services were on the train at the time Zarutska was stabbed by homeless man DeCarlos Brown. That’s despite the fact that Professional Security Services has an $18.4 million contract with CATS.
“A guard on the light rail train … would have deterred and prevented the death of Iryna Zarutska,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit says that Professional Security Services employs 219 security personnel, of which only 39 are armed, to protect the entire CATS system 24/7.
“This number of armed personnel is not sufficient to have an armed officer or guard on all its 48 light rail train cars at once,” the lawsuit says.
Zarutska’s family seeks over $25,000, as well as compensatory damages and other costs. Neither Charlotte nor the security firm have responded to the lawsuit as of this article’s publication.
Zarutska’s August 22, 2025, death shocked and horrified much of the country, especially when the full video was finally released by this outlet on Sept. 9. The footage showed a homeless man, DeCarlos Brown, stabbing Zarutska in the neck before sauntering off—leaving her to blead out and die within seconds.
Brown was arrested shortly later and taken to the hospital with cuts on his own hand. He was charged with murder. He’s since been deemed “incapable of proceeding” in the federal and state cases against him. The determination for Brown does not mean he’s being let out of custody. However, it may spare him from the death penalty.
Now, Brown is undergoing medical treatment in a federal facility to restore his competency, according to the Justice Department.
The DOJ has said Brown’s prognosis to become competent to proceed is “good.” But even if he can’t be restored to competency, he still wouldn’t be released. He’d be subject to civil commitment proceedings.
Brown was found incompetent to proceed because he has a mental illness. “He experiences delusions that center around his belief that he was exposed to a Material and it ‘control[s] his every movement,’” his attorneys said in a court filing. “He refers to it as his Body Emergency. The delusions are constant and persistent.”
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
