As public outrage grew over last month’s killing on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina, Mayor Vi Lyles focused her initial statement on addressing mental health issues, warning that “we will never arrest our way” out of some of the underlying causes of crime.
A day later, facing accusations that she had downplayed the stabbing death of Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, Lyles pivoted. She announced an increased law enforcement presence on the transit system and accused the local courts of “tragic failure.”
“Our police officers arrest people only to have them quickly released, which undermines our ability to protect our community and ensure safety,” Lyles said.
The shift in tone illustrates Democrats’ ongoing challenges in messaging on public safety.
Five years after the murder of George Floyd sparked a racial reckoning and a brief push among some Democrats to cut funding from police departments to provide money to social services, the party has failed to articulate a vision that addresses concerns over crime and criminal justice reform.
Video obtained by CNN affiliate WCNC from the Charlotte Area Transit System shows the moments before the fatal stabbing. – WCNC/Charlotte Area Transit System
Zarutska’s death, and the release last week of surveillance video capturing the attack, has ignited several veins of the national debate over public safety.
Democrats agree that their messaging lacks the simplicity and cohesion of Republicans’ tough-on-crime approach. There is also a growing consensus that, even if federal statistics show that crime is down, that doesn’t change voters’ perception of their own safety.
“We need to learn at long last that data does not make people feel and it doesn’t shift perception,” said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a moderate Democratic think tank. “Data is a tool, but only a fairly useless one in politics.”
While the party struggles to define its own policies, it risks being defined by President Donald Trump, who has threatened to send more federal forces to Democratic-led cities after deploying the National Guard to Washington, DC.
Republicans including Trump and North Carolina Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley have claimed that Democratic prosecutors, judges and lawmakers have supported policies that allow people like the alleged attacker to be on the streets.
Iryna Zarutska poses for a photo posted to her Instagram page on June 9, 2025. Zaruktska, 23, was fatally stabbed in August while on a Charlotte, North Carolina, light rail train. – from Iryna Zarutska/Instagram
“For far too long, Americans have been forced to put up with Democrat-run cities that set loose savage, bloodthirsty criminals to prey on innocent people,” Trump said in an Oval Office video posted Tuesday.
An AP-NORC poll released August 31 found that 55% of US adults said deploying the National Guard to assist police departments was acceptable or somewhat acceptable to them. A slight majority, 53%, said they approved of how the president is handling crime, compared with 43% who approve of his handling of the economy.
The poll found that 66% of adults think crime is a “major problem” in the United States.
“Republicans actually take the issue seriously,” said Matt Mercer, a spokesperson for the North Carolina Republican Party. “For years now you’ve seen Democrats really talk about how we really need to feel more sorry for the people committing crimes than those who suffer from them.”
Democratic messaging in North Carolina has varied. Soon after Lyles’ initial response, Democratic Gov. Josh Stein called on the legislature to pass his proposal to boost pay for law enforcement and correctional officers.
“We need more cops on the beat to keep people safe,” he wrote on X. “That’s why my budget calls for more funding to hire more well-trained police officers.”
Decarlos Brown’s booking photo. – Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office
Republicans have argued the suspect, Decarlos Brown — who had a history of mental illness and convictions for breaking and entering, armed robbery and felony larceny — should not have been free to allegedly commit the crime in the first place. In January, Brown was charged with misuse of 911, a Class 1 misdemeanor, after he called for help to deal with what he described as a “man-made” substance controlling him. A judge released him on cashless bail after he provided a written promise he would return to court.
“Democrat politicians, liberal judges and weak prosecutors would rather virtual signal than lock up criminals and protect their communities,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Tuesday press briefing as she railed against cashless bail.
Republicans have criticized former Gov. Roy Cooper, the party’s front-runner in next year’s US Senate race, pointing to a task force for racial equity he created via executive order in June 2020, weeks after Floyd was murdered.
The panel, which was co-chaired by Stein when he was the state’s attorney general, was asked to recommend solutions to “end disparate outcomes in the criminal justice system, mitigate the effects of bias and discrimination, and increase accountability in law enforcement and criminal justice.”
It recommended increased training and accountability from police, addiction and mental health treatment, and eliminating cash bail for low-level offenses unless there is a threat to public safety. Cooper signed legislation in 2023 implementing stricter bail laws for violent criminals.
The task force didn’t release its recommendations until after Brown completed a five-year sentence for robbery with a dangerous weapon in September 2020, and it didn’t recommend releasing inmates early. In 2021, the North Carolina prison system reached a settlement with the NAACP to fast-track the release of at least 3,500 inmates due to overcrowding during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Emergency responders near the scene of the fatal stabbing. – WCNC
“This was a heartbreaking, despicable act of evil and Iryna Zarutska’s family and loved ones are in our prayers,” a spokesperson for the Cooper campaign said in a statement. “Roy Cooper knows North Carolinians need to be safe in their communities; he spent his career prosecuting violent criminals and drug dealers, increasing the penalties for violence against law enforcement, and keeping thousands of criminals off the streets and behind bars.”
Democrats have long struggled to settle on a consistent message on public safety in a way that resonates with voters, a majority of whom trust Republicans more on the issue. The party has specifically struggled when Republicans tie them to specific instances of violence that capture national attention.
During the 1988 presidential campaign, supporters of George H.W. Bush released the racially divisive Willie Horton attack ad against Democrat Michael Dukakis. Horton, a Black man and convicted murderer, raped a White woman while he was out on a Massachusetts prison furlough program while Dukakis was governor. Bush won in a landslide.
Four years later, Bill Clinton won the presidency running on a tough-on-crime platform, then signed the 1994 crime bill into law. The legislation added funding for policing and banned assault weapons. It also implemented several policies — such as the “three strikes” provision — that Democrats later blamed for mass incarceration.
In recent years, Democrats have struggled to find a political middle ground between the Clinton crime bill and the post-2020 “defund the police” movement.
“The biggest challenge for Democrats is that the only narrative that the public has heard when it comes to crime and when terrible, tragic incidents happen — like the stabbing and murder in Charlotte — is a GOP narrative of ‘We need to crack down and get tough on crime,’” said Insha Rahman, the director of Vera Action, which works to limit mass incarceration.
Rahman has called on Democrats to go on the offensive when discussing public safety by focusing on aspects such as reducing gun violence and providing medical treatment for addiction and mental illness.
“It’s not about being tough or soft on crime, but it’s about being serious about safety,” she said. “Safety is the thing we all want. Crime is the thing we don’t.”
Bennett of Third Way, who worked on Clinton’s presidential campaigns, said his party should argue that Trump and his use of federal forces in cities is actually interfering with attempts to reduce crime. He pointed to messaging about the intervention in Washington, DC, by Mayor Muriel Bowser, who noted Republicans cut $1 billion from the city’s budget, including money for law enforcement.
“All it requires is saying, ‘Let me be 100% clear, we have a crime problem in America, and we need to address it with serious law enforcement … and the problem with Trump is what he’s doing is actually getting in the way of that,’” Bennett said.
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