Transcript
Sacha Stone (0:00)
Hi, this is Free Thinking through the fourth Turning. My name is Sacha Stone. The girl on the train. She escaped war in Ukraine only to find herself in the middle of a different kind of war in the United States. After a shift at Zeppeti's Pizzeria in Charlotte, North Carolina, 23 year old Irina Zarutska boarded the train and quickly made a decision where to sit. Did she think about her safety? Did she fear sitting in front of a black man with dreadlocks and a face twisted into worried knots? Or did she find a seat far away from him just on a hunch? The truth is that Irina had no real choice. If she avoided the seat in front of the black man, she might look like a racist. She had no reason to fear him, after all, because she was sympathetic to the plight of racism in America and even had the words Black lives Matter and I can't breathe scrawled on a chalkboard in her room. Podcast listeners. A picture of Irina with a chalkboard that says Black lives Matter and I can't breathe. She was learning to speak English, and what better way than to get to know the villains and the heroes in America in 2025. She was just 23, having arrived in the US at the age of 20 with a degree in art and restoration from Synergy College in Kyiv. She joined a settlement of other Ukrainian refugees in Charlotte. She knew enough to tuck her hair into her cap, keep her glasses on and not look like the blonde beauty that has now blanketed all social media. If you look like that, no one will leave you alone. Podcast listeners. A picture of Irina. But a little fear would have done Irina good, as it would do any young woman riding the train at night. Fear is her only protection. The problem is, when it comes to black men, white women are shamed out of that fear. They don't want to appear like racists or Karens. They won't grab their purse in an elevator or avoid sitting too close to a black man. They don't want to buy into the stereotype that has white women fearing black men for centuries. As she boarded the train that night heading home, she could not have known that the man she sat in front of had 13 previous arrests and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. She wrapped her arms around her body and seemed to display a sense of foreboding. She looked afraid of something or someone, just not of the guy sitting behind her with her earbuds canceling out all noise. She might not have heard the man take out his knife. Before she knew it, he was stabbing her in the neck killing her. Did the passengers scream? Did anyone try to do anything to alert her to the danger? No. They were too afraid.
Narrator/Reporter (3:31)
What no one outside the investigation had seen were the actual surveillance recordings. That changed on September 5, 2025, when officials released the video and the story went from a local crime to a global headline. On September 5, 2025, two weeks after the fatal stabbing, the Charlotte Area Transit System CATS publicly released surveillance footage from the train where the attack occurred. The video, which contains no audio, shows Irina zarudska boarding at 9:46pm and sitting with her headphones on. Decarlos Brown Jr is seen seated nearby for several minutes. The footage appears routine. At approximately 9:50pm Brown suddenly moves toward Zarutska. The stabbing itself is not shown in graphic detail, but passengers are seen reacting in panic, running to the far end of the car, pounding on the doors and attempting to call for help. The release of the video generated immediate national and international attention. News outlets across the United States, Europe and Ukraine carried the footage emphasizing the fact that Zarutska was a refugee who had fled the war in Ukraine. On social media platforms, including TikTok, Twitter and YouTube, clips of the surveillance footage spread rapidly, gaining millions of views within hours. Dozens of family members and friends attended Irina's funeral Wednesday here in Huntersville. Her obituary says she had a deep love for animals and wanted to be a veterinary assistant. Zarutska's obituary calls her a gifted and passionate artist who shared her creativity, generously gifting family and friends with her artwork. She loved sculpting and designing unique, eclectic clothing. An online fundraiser has been started to help support the family.