On August 22, Iryna Zarutska, 23, was unexpectedly attacked on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina, by a man seated behind her.
Her murder, captured on video, garnered little national news last month. However, it recently surged into the spotlight after Republican lawmakers and far-right influencers promoted the graphic CCTV footage last weekend.
Conservatives have seized her murder as evidence of systemic failures in "soft-on-crime" policies associated with Democrats, while liberals and some media outlets have cautioned against politicising the tragedy or using it to stoke racial divisions as President Donald Trump seeks to expand a crackdown.
This seemingly bolsters Trump's proposals to deploy troops into cities, such as Chicago, governed by Democrats.
Republicans defend the operations as vital for combating crime, whilst Trump's critics view them as an authoritarian power grab.
"The ANIMAL who so violently killed the beautiful young lady from Ukraine, who came to America searching for peace and safety, should be given a "Quick" (there is no doubt!) Trial, and only awarded THE DEATH PENALTY. There can be no other option,!!!" Trump posted on his social media platform on Wednesday.
Trump's demand came after his attorney general, Pam Bondi, said she would pursue the "maximum penalty" against the attacker.
The Republican leader has politicised the murder, calling the attacker a "career criminal". He has blamed Democrats for Zarutska's death, accusing them of leniency towards criminals.
Zarutska and relatives emigrated from Ukraine in 2022 to escape the war, but her life ended tragically in an unprovoked attack by a man with apparent mental health issues.
The detained suspect has been identified as Decarlos Brown, a 34-year-old African-American, and charged with first degree murder.
He has multiple prior convictions and spent eight years in prison for armed robbery, according to court documents obtained by local television station WBTV.
'Ugly truth'
The murder only gained national attention after the initial reaction by Charlotte's Democratic mayor emerged.
Days after Zarutska's murder, Mayor Vi Lyles offered "thoughts and prayers" to relatives of the victim, whom she did not identify in her initial statement. Instead she focused on the suspect's condition.
"I am not villainising those who struggle with their mental health or those who are unhoused," Lyles said in the statement.
Criticism poured in.
When footage of the murder was then released last week, and Lyles asked the media not to share it "out of respect for Iryna's family," an outcry ensued on the right.
"Charlotte's Mayor doesn't want the media to show you the ugly truth. Why? Because she and other public officials in her city bear responsibility," US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted Sunday on X.
The following day he accused Democrats of "downplaying murders like this by saying we can't demonize the homeless or the mentally ill."
Trump advisor Stephen Miller accused Democrats of backing "the monstrous and the depraved."
Racial dimension
Trump has sent National Guard troops to Washington and is threatening to do the same in Chicago, the country's third-largest city, even as both have reported substantial reductions in crime in recent years.
Zarutska's murder is now fueling Republican demands — often infused with racial commentary — for more crackdowns.
Right-wing tech billionaire Elon Musk supported an X post on crime figures that said white people are victims of Black violence far more often than the reverse.
Conservative activist Charlie Kirk also addressed the race factor.
"If a random white person simply walked up to and stabbed a nice law-abiding black person for no reason, it would be an apocalyptically huge national story used to impose sweeping political changes on the whole country," Kirk posted Monday on X.
The comment was an apparent reference to George Floyd, a Black man whose 2020 killing by a white police officer sparked waves of anti-racism protests months before incumbent Trump lost the presidential election to Joe Biden.
Republicans say a crack down is needed to reduce what they call out-of-control crime, while opponents accuse Trump of authoritarian overreach — and point to statistics showing steep overall reductions in many crimes.
In the North Carolina case, the White House and its allies have highlighted the initial response by local Democratic officials who stressed the alleged killer's history of mental health problems.
Leavitt attacks US media
Brown has multiple prior convictions — including an armed robbery that led to five years in prison, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday, calling him a "monster" who "should have been locked up."
"Perhaps most shamefully of all is the majority of media, many outlets in this room, decided that her murder was not worth reporting on originally because it does not fit a preferred narrative."
"Many of the journalists in this room spilled plenty of ink trying to smear Daniel Penny for defending a subway car from a derange lunatic in New York City."
"But none of those same reporters lift a finger to write stories about an actual murderer."
In Manhattan on May 1, 2023, Marine veteran Daniel Penny fatally choked Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man, on an uptown F train. The incident was filmed.
Penny was subsequently tried for homicide, and ultimately acquitted.
That case sparked weeks of protests and reignited debates over public safety and mental illness in the US.
Some also highlighted the issue of race — Neely was Black; Penny is white.
