Republicans are in charge in NC, but somehow Democrats are to blame for violent crime | Opinion
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Republicans held a hearing in Charlotte to link local crime to national policies.
- State GOP passed 'Iryna’s Law,' restricting bail and emphasizing mental evaluations.
- Critics argue GOP neglects mental health funding while pushing tough-on-crime laws.
The horrific fatal stabbing of a young woman on the Charlotte light rail has sent Republicans into full crime-exploitation mode.
On Monday, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and and others from the Carolinas congressional delegation convened in Charlotte to discuss violent crime in the wake of the killing of Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old from Ukraine. The point of the Republican-led committee’s field trip wasn’t so much to seek solutions to violent crime as it was to affix blame for it.
Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a southern New Jersey Republican who led the hearing, made quick work of that.
“Bad leaders let this happen. Weak leaders,” Van Drew said in a Carolina Journal report. “Why is it that some of these leaders show more compassion for criminals but not the victims? …I don’t know why judges, elected officials, leftist nonprofits and activist groups are doing all they can to make our streets more dangerous.”
Being from New Jersey, Van Drew may not be aware that the leaders in North Carolina are mostly Republicans. They include both U.S. senators, 10 of 14 U.S. representatives, the majority of the state House and Senate and the majority of the state Supreme Court.
U.S. Rep Deborah Ross, a Democrat representing North Carolina’s 2nd District, said at the meeting that responsibility for controlling crime belongs to those in charge, especially when they’re cutting funds for law enforcement.
“This is not the Democrats’ fault,” she said. “This is the fault of Congress and our legislature, not doing enough. They want you to believe that being tough on crime and saying law and order is going to solve the problem, and they want to believe that a slogan will make America safe again. But if that is the case, why is Congress cutting aid to local law enforcement by $100 million next year?”
The Trump administration has reduced funding even more, terminating public safety grants totaling about $500 million, according to the Council on Criminal Justice.
Meanwhile, state lawmakers did their own tough-on-crime grandstanding after a ghastly video of the Charlotte slaying made it a national issue.
Last week, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed “Iryna’s Law.”
Zarutska died after being attacked Aug. 22 while she rode the light rail home from work. The homeless man charged with her death, Decarlos Brown Jr., 34, has a lengthy police record and reportedly has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Brown had been arrested in January on a misdemeanor charge of misusing the 911 system to report that he thought an implanted material was controlling his mind and body. He was released by a magistrate after he signed a promise to appear in court.
“Iryna’s Law” – officially House Bill 307 – has sensible provisions for mandatory mental health evaluations and holding violent offenders, but it sharply narrows opportunities for pretrial release and veers into extreme calls for expediting capital punishment.
In backing the bill, Speaker of the House Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, sounded the same note as Van Drew, blaming “activists” for lapses in the criminal justice system that led to the slaying.
“For too long, activist judges and magistrates have turned dangerous criminals loose, endangering lives and spreading chaos in our communities,” he said. “That ends now.”
Hall did not explain why Republicans had not stopped such mayhem during their 11 years in control of the state House and Senate. And he ignored whether the legislature’s neglect of the state’s mental health system and its underfunding of the court system had any role in what happened in Charlotte.
Brandon Garrett, a Duke law professor and director of the school’s Wilson Center for Science and Justice, studies ways to improve the criminal justice system. He said bail reform is needed in North Carolina but House Bill 307 falls short of addressing how the system makes pretrial release a function of income rather than risk.
The bill calls for more mental health evaluations, he said, but doesn’t provide more resources.
“The bill does not seem serious about either public safety or mental health,” he said. “But it may create a lot of expenses for counties from costly local jail detentions of people without due process.”
Gov. Josh Stein has doubts about the bill, but a veto would be difficult to sustain. He’s likely to let it become law without his signature and avoid setting himself up for demagoguery about being soft on crime by the party that is soft on funding law enforcement and mental health care.
Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-404-7583, or nbarnett@newsobserver.com
This story was originally published October 1, 2025 at 4:30 AM.