“If mayors can’t keep their trains and buses safe, they don’t deserve the taxpayers’ money,” Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Sean Duffy said, making it clear that the DOT is investigating the devastating Charlotte stabbing.
“I stand firm with President Trump’s message of zero tolerance for criminality, especially on our federal DOT funded public transportation,” Duffy said on X.
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“If mayors can’t keep their trains and buses safe, they don’t deserve the taxpayers’ money. @USDOT will be investigating Charlotte over its failure to protect Iryna Zarutska. And we will also be looking at other crime ridden cities across the country,” Duffy continued.
“I was moved by a Charlotte resident who said today: ‘I don’t feel safe on public transportation. But, I have to work.’ No American should be put in that position and the Trump administration will do everything in its power to change that,” he added.
Duffy’s remarks follow the horrific killing, which took place on August 22. The victim, identified as 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska, was stabbed to death on the Lynx Blue Line light rail system at the East/West Boulevard station. Decarlos Brown Jr., 34 — a repeat offender with past convictions — has been identified as the suspect and has been arrested and charged with murder.
WSOC reporter Joe Bruno said the suspect’s mother has spoken out, deeming his actions “atrocious, it was horrible and it was wrong.” She also said that her son began “saying weird things” upon his prison release, after serving over five years on an armed robbery charge.
Several public officials have pointed to the fact that the suspect has well over a dozen mugshots and question how or why he was allowed to roam the streets freely.
“I just give my love and hope to the family of the young woman who was stabbed … in Charlotte by a madman — a lunatic,” President Donald Trump said of the brutal murder.
“[It’s] not really watchable, because it’s so horrible, but just viciously stabbed. She’s just sitting there,” he continued. “So they’re evil people. We have to be able to handle that. If we don’t handle that, we don’t have a country.”
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