The repeat offender who stabbed Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska to death aboard a Charlotte, N.C., commuter train last year is incompetent to stand trial, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.
Presiding Federal Judge Kenneth Bell found that Decarlos Dejuan Brown Jr did not understand the proceedings and would be unable to assist in his defense. Brown is up on federal charges of terrorist attacks and other violence against mass transportation systems, in large part because state and local courts kept releasing him, despite a long history of violence and mental illness.
He's also up on state charges of first-degree murder.
In the August attack, Brown appeared to select Zarutska almost at random, stabbing her repeatedly in the neck from behind before casually getting off at the next stop. Zarutska died almost immediately, apparently confused, and then with a look of tragic understanding on her face before she collapsed, unattended and uncomforted by any of the other passengers.
The murder, caught on video, shocked the world.
Brown had an outburst at today's hearing, according to Queen City News, shouting, "that he wants to ask the judge whether he reviewed the evaluation and said he wants to press charges against the FBI." He went on with more intelligible shouts, including something about having "material in my body."
So clearly, yeah, Brown is not right in the head.
However...
The federal judge also ruled — unlike so many previous North Carolina judges — that Brown will not be released. Instead, "he will receive medication and treatment for up to four months in an effort to restore his competency."
After four months, the court could decide again whether Brown is fit to stand trial. If not, Queen City reported, "he could remain in custody under possible civil commitment."
That's a lot of maybes and ifs for a man with dozens of arrests — usually on the catch-and-release system pioneered in our Democrat-run cities — including:
- Robbery with a dangerous weapon (convicted; served prison time, notably a 2014–2015 case involving assault and theft at gunpoint).
- Felony breaking and entering.
- Felony larceny.
- Assault (simple assault and other variants).
- Shoplifting.
- Making threats / communicating threats.
- Misuse of 911 (multiple instances, including January 2025).
- Disorderly conduct.
- Resisting a public officer.
Yet somehow he was free to murder Iryna Zarutska in cold blood, muttering, "Got that white girl" as she quickly bled out.
So Brown is a victim of schizophrenia — so what? Do the rest of us have to suffer from his affliction, too, up to and including murder?
No.
My devout readers might lambaste me for this, but cases like this one have me long past the point of still believing that every life is sacred. Some people just need to be locked up, but so-called "progressive" judges and prosecutors failed to see it that way in Brown's case, again and again. And a case like Brown's is hardly unique, as our big cities prefer that social workers "administer" to the criminally mentally ill, rather than incarcerate them.
Iryna is dead because the justice system failed repeatedly to deliver justice. That must stop now before he claims another life. Either Brown is too sick to ever be inflicted on the public, or he recovers enough to face a jury and perhaps face the death penalty.
But there's no way he should ever be free again.
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