Why the media ignored the North Carolina train murder

A brutal murder on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina has shocked social-media users – but only, it seems, those on the right. And that is because, despite the horrific video of the attack on a defenceless young woman going viral, much of the mainstream American media did not deign to cover the story.

Why? I submit it is because the perpetrator – a homeless, mentally ill, African American man with a history of repeat offending – belongs to one of the liberal media’s victim-identity groups. He is therefore beyond criticism – or, at the very least, an awkward case to discuss, given he may well have been roaming the streets because of the witless, soft-on-crime policies of today’s liberals. Indeed, in January, a North Carolina magistrate judge allowed Brown to remain free ‘on a written promise’ that he would return for his next court appearance, according to the Daily Mail.

The footage recorded on 22 August shows Iryna Zarutska boarding a train in Charlotte, after finishing a shift at the pizzeria where she worked. She takes a seat in front of a man identified as Decarlos Brown Jr. Moments later, he takes out a knife, stands up behind her and raises his arm to attack, as she sits with her back to him, completely unaware. After he stabs her, Brown is then shown walking down the aisle of the train, leaving a trail of blood as he goes. Zarutska died at the scene. She was 23 years old, and had fled Ukraine for safety in the US after the Russian invasion in 2022.

Zarutska’s terrible and senseless murder has further revealed just how divided the US is. Liberal progressives and conservative right-wingers are now not just politically alienated from one another – they also live in two separate realities, with worldviews that are fed by two entirely different news ecosystems. As many, including Elon Musk, have commented on X, the lack of coverage in the national papers stood in stark contrast to their feverish reporting on similar incidents in which the victim was black.

After days of social-media commentary, some mainstream outlets did decide to cover the reaction to the event – but not the event itself. They effectively dismissed the actual murder as a crime story of local interest only.

But it wasn’t just a local crime story. Zarutska’s brutal killing was notable for multiple reasons: it was caught on video; she was a young refugee who came to America for a better life; and her alleged attacker had over 10 prior convictions, including assault, shoplifting, breaking and entering, and a five-year prison sentence for bank robbery. It is perfectly fair to ask why this man was free to do what he did.

The mainstream liberal media have dodged such questions by claiming the murder is being politically and racially exploited. CNN played a clip of conservative Trump supporter Charlie Kirk discussing the murder, with a talking head noting archly that Kirk said ‘”white” a lot’. A piece in Politico said that ‘President Donald Trump and MAGA allies are using the killing of Iryna Zarutska to attack Democrats’. And Axios published a piece with the headline, ‘Stabbing video fuels MAGA crime message’. It asserted that ‘Democrats have accurately pointed out that violent-crime rates have been decreasing since pre-pandemic highs’. There they go again, with their pissy little fact-checks, which completely fail to separate the forest from the trees.

Zarutska’s murder has shown how liberals’ toxic, phoney empathy leads to a lack of genuine empathy. Charlotte’s Democratic mayor, Vi Lyles, gave a statement in which she did not mention Zarutska by name. ‘This is a tragic situation that sheds light on problems with society safety nets related to mental healthcare and the systems that should be in place’, she said. ‘We will never arrest our way out of issues such as homelessness and mental health.’

Some so-called progressives have even set up a GoFundMe for Zarutska’s alleged killer, to raise money for his legal bills. It states that ‘Brown was just the victim of a broken judicial system’.

This response is not a surprise. Time and again, Democrats and their supporters have failed to condemn even the most vicious crimes, if the perpetrator belongs to one of their special identity categories. Just last month, Democratic Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey spoke about protecting the trans community after a young man who had identified as a transwoman killed two children as they were praying inside a Catholic church.

It is as if America’s liberals think they must save each and every miscreant, if he or she belongs to a sacred minority group. And not even the barbaric murder of an innocent woman coming home from work will stand in their way.

Jenny Holland is a former newspaper reporter and speechwriter. Visit her Substack here