U.S. in shock after Ukrainian refugee Iryna stabbed to death by homeless man on streetcar

The murder of a young Ukrainian refugee in Charlotte by a homeless man has animated the American political debate for several days. Donald Trump called for the death penalty on Wednesday.

The case continues to gain momentum in the United States. On the evening of August 22, a young Ukrainian refugee, 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska, was violently stabbed on a Charlotte streetcar by an individual with multiple previous convictions, including several years in prison for armed robbery.

 

This Wednesday, Donald Trump called for the death penalty for the alleged perpetrator of the murder, which has provoked outrage in the US, particularly among conservative figures. “THE ANIMAL who so violently killed the beautiful young girl from Ukraine, who came to America seeking peace and safety, should get a ‘speedy’ trial (there's no doubt about it!), and be awarded THE DEATH PENALTY,” the US president said on his Truth Social platform. “There can be no alternative,” he added, the day after the federal judiciary intervened in the case, with his attorney general asking prosecutors for maximum prosecution.

 

On the evening of August 22, Iryna Zarutska boarded a streetcar in Charlotte, in the eastern United States. A few minutes after she sat down, a man got on, sat behind her and stabbed her three times, without any prior exchange, according to CCTV footage. The blonde 23-year-old had left Ukraine in 2022 following the Russian invasion, and had “quickly adjusted to her new life in the United States”, explained her obituary.

 

The suspect, Decarlos Brown, a 34-year-old African-American man, has multiple previous convictions, including several years in prison for armed robbery.

Charlotte's Democratic mayor, Vi Lyles, had reacted to the event by saying that she did not want to “demonize those who have difficulties with their mental health”, as was the case with the alleged perpetrator. Initially of local resonance, the affair took on a national dimension with the publication on Friday of the particularly shocking CCTV images. Vi Lyles' initial reaction provoked an outcry from the right. Transport Minister Sean Duffy accused the Democratic mayor “and others on the left” of “minimizing murders like this by saying we can't demonize the homeless or the mentally ill”.

 

Donald Trump has also commented extensively on the affair, expressing his determination to put the fight against crime at the top of his priorities, and mainly in big cities run by Democrats, accused of laxity. To this end, he has sent National Guard soldiers to the capital, Washington, which he says is overrun by “violent gangs”, and is threatening to do the same in Chicago, the country's third-largest city. “We cannot let a depraved criminal fringe of repeat violent offenders continue to wreak destruction and death across our country,” he declared in a video Tuesday on Truth Social.

 

Others on the right criticize the progressive media for deliberately killing Iryna Zarutska, because the victim is white and the alleged perpetrator black. “If a lambda white person simply walked up and stabbed a nice, honest black person, it would be an absolutely huge story on a national scale, used to force radical political change on the entire country,” commented notably the very popular conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk. An apparent allusion to George Floyd, a black man who died asphyxiated in 2020 under the knee of a white policeman, and whose murder had provoked a wave of anti-racist protests, a few months before the presidential election lost by Donald Trump to Joe Biden.