A U.S. House Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing Monday in uptown Charlotte on crime, prompted by the murder last month of Iryna Zarutska on the Lynx Blue Line. Republican members of Congress said Democratic-controlled Mecklenburg County has a revolving door for criminals, while the few Democrats who were there said more attention should be paid to mental health services.
Inside a packed jury room at the federal courthouse, the Republican-controlled committee heard testimony from Mia Alderman. Her granddaughter, Mary Santina Collins, was stabbed 133 times, then wrapped in plastic and hidden in a mattress in NoDa. That was five years ago.
“What makes this even more unbearable is how the justice system had handled those accused of Mary’s murder,” she said. “Two of (the four people accused) were released on bond, as if their crimes were minor, as if they stole a candy bar or broke into a car.”
Many witnesses echoed that theme. They said Mecklenburg County fails to keep people accused of crimes behind bars. One was Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officer Justin Campbell, who was injured in a 2024 shootout in east Charlotte when four members of a task force serving a warrant were killed.
“The judicial system here in Mecklenburg County, I can speak firsthand, is trash,” he said. “And I’ll say it again, over and over again. And I’ll take the repercussions after saying that. The magistrates here have no idea what they are doing. The cashless bail system is a joke.”
The man accused of killing Zarutska on Aug. 22, DeCarlos Brown, had been arrested more than a dozen times. He served five years for armed robbery. In January, he was arrested for misusing the 911 system, a misdemeanor, and released with a written notice to come back to court. Brown’s mother has said he suffered from schizophrenia and had previously been involuntarily committed. His public defender in that case had requested an evaluation of Brown's mental capacity, which was pending at the time of the killing.
Charlotte-area Rep. Mark Harris, a Republican, asked Campbell:
“Have you encountered situations where individuals with a history of violent crime were released and then you saw later reoffended?” Harris said.
Campbell replied: “That would be the majority of people I arrested.”
After the killing, Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, a Democrat, has also criticized how Mecklenburg judges and magistrates handle pretrial release.
Most Democratic committee members didn’t come to Charlotte for the hearing.
Charlotte Rep. Alma Adams, who isn’t part of the committee, did attend. She said Republicans were politicizing Zarutska’s murder. She also objected to South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman showing a large photo of Zarutska from surveillance footage in the moments after Brown stabbed her.
And Democratic committee member Deborah Ross, who represents the Triangle, said Republicans and the Trump administration are cutting money for law enforcement.
“Why is the Congress cutting aid to local enforcement by $100 million next year?” she asked. “Why are they proposing cuts to the crime victims fund? Why do they want to slash juvenile justice grants and hate crime grants?”
One of Ross’ witnesses was criminologist Jeff Asher, who talked about violent crime nationwide on pace to drop to its lowest levels since the 1960s.
Charlotte has bucked that trend. The number of murders are down in 2025 compared to 2024, but the overall murder rate this decade is higher than it was in the previous decade, around 2015.
The North Carolina General Assembly last week passed Iryna’s Law, which would fund 10 new prosecutors for the Mecklenburg District Attorney’s Office and also tighten procedures for pretrial release. It also moves to restart the death penalty in North Carolina.
Democratic Gov. Josh Stein has said he’s considering whether to sign it.
