Charlotte's light rail murder goes viral, forces responses (09-08-2025--Hour2)

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to dpeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. Thanks again to Eric and Robert for coming in to talk about their coalition, this grassroots coalition they're trying to build to oppose the transit tacks. And in case you were not aware, America is now learning of the attack on the twenty three year old Ukrainian refugee Arena Zarutska, who was murdered over three weeks ago on the Cat's light rail train in Southend. Had gotten off the work at her job as a working at a pizzeria and had gotten onto the train and sat down. She had her like her polo shirt or T shirt with the pize soeria name on it. She had her hat, she was in uniform basically and she sat down. She was looking at her phone, she had earbuds in, and her attacker sitting right behind her for like four four and a half minutes. He stands up without provocation and takes a folding knife a pocket knife he had taken it out, and he stands up and stabs her in the neck three times and then begins walking to the exits of the train. He's bleeding all over the floor. Most people don't even realize what has happened. And then he gets off the train. And we know this because local media got the video from inside the cat's train and they published it over the weekend or on Friday maybe I think it was. Wbtv's video went viral over the weekend and people all around the world now were shocked to see this video, and it is shocking. It's a shocking good Now. WBTV did not show the actual contact. Froze the it froze the image, It froze the video before it shows him kind of rearing back with his hand, and then it freezes the frame and then it jumps ahead to afterwards, so it doesn't show her murder, which I think is appropriate. If that was your child or loved one, you would not want to see their murder. On your TV every single day. But the video has now prompted all sorts of people at all levels of government and politics and media all over the country and even outside of America to be just shocked and outraged at what has occurred. And part of the response from outside has been also the shock at the way our local officials have responded and the way national media has responded. So first, on the local official front, they have been people are expressing befuddlement and anger at the way the mayor and local elected officials have responded, which is basically in you know, well, their argument is that they have kind of taken a blase approach to this. We've been saying this now for three weeks that you know. The first statement from the mayor came like four days after the fact, and it was six paragraphs long, and the first sentence was saying thoughts and prayers to the victim not named, and then five raps about how we as a society failed the attacker and that got people mad. And people don't realize from outside of Charlotte, they don't realize that the local officials kind of want this story to just go away. This is very bad timing for them. And I'm not trying to sound you know, uncaring to the victim here, but this is like there was a political dynamic to this story and the local officials and boosters for the Trans attacks like this is the worst thing that could have happened to them for their campaign. And I know how that sounds. I'm not trying to be ghoulish or anything, but this is a terrible development if you're trying to promote a tax increase that you need voter support for and you get this, So that I suspect was the reason why there was this tepid response out of the gate. Hopefully it will you know, there won't be a lot to see here. It'll just kind of go away and that's it. But when the video comes out, now it's gone viral, and like it speaks to the breaking down of the old gatekeeper legacy media model. It really does. Because in the old days, right before social media and before everybody had a smartphone and could rebroadcast or publish whatever stories they thought were important, and they get to decide what is newsworthy and what is not. This tactic may have very well worked, but it doesn't anymore. And so now when people come to this story three weeks after and they start going back and looking at the developments. Then they see what we were seeing locally, which was this this effort to kind of dismiss and to minimize and downplay and just oh my gosh, you know, it's a terrible thing. But how did we fail? And oh yeah, let's talk about mental health and the mental health system and the gaps in the mental health system and all of that, and now you got Trump. Trump was asked about it Sunday. He had not heard about it. Apparently he had not seen it. He said, when did this happen? He says, I see the video. I'll know all about it by tomorrow morning. So Trumps now is now going to get involved in That's not good for the city of Charlotte. That's not going to be helpful. It's getting the attention now because the video got released and people are asking why was there a lack of coverage? And in defense of our local media, they have done a good job. Our local media has done a good job of covering this story for the last three weeks. All of the outlets I've not encountered really any local outlets that have that have dropped the ball or done you know, terrible or misleading stories or anything like that. By publishing the video. Now it's gone viral, and you've got the mayor of Charlotte, now, who's you know, in a primary for her reelection. That's the other component here locally is that you've got city council members running for reelection and they're worried out this is going to impact their reelection campaigns because we are in early voting right now. So the mayor puts out another statement after the release of the video, and her statement seems more angry about the publication of the video. She doesn't like attack anybody, but she says something to the effect of, you know, thank you for the responsible media partners for the way that they're sharing this. This video kind of a thing, like sort of a backhanded compliment kind of a thing. In other words, don't let people see the video. It's one thing to hear sort of a TikTok a chronology of what transpired, but when you see it, and I have seen it, and it's shocking, and you can tell the guy is sitting there leaning against the window and muttering to himself and this victim, twenty three year old Zarutzka. She walks in and has no situational awareness. She's not paying any attention. She's in a high trust society, or so she thought. She just walked on the train, sat down in the seat, and happened to be sitting right in front of this deranged man and never saw the attack coming, which we are told by the local transit leadership and city officials that even if we had a security guard or a cop on the train, they wouldn't have been able to prevent it from happening because it happened so quickly, and there was no indication ahead of time that this guy was going to stabb her, and it did happen very quickly, and if he was bent on doing it, probably not a cop probably could not have stopped that from happening. However, his presence on the train may have. I've been hammering this away. The deterrence effect is being ignored by all of these local officials that keep saying, well, we couldn't have stopped it because he jumped up so fast. The presence of security may have. So. When I was a kid, my grandpa died with Alzheimer's, and before he died, my mom and my dad took care of him as he got worse. Forty years ago, there were no treatments and not much support for caregivers and family. But things are different today because of the work of so many people, including the Alzheimer's Association of Western Carolina. It's a great organization with awesome people with huge hearts. I've been a supporter for twenty five years. This cause means a lot to me. I participate in the annual Walk to End Alzheimer's and I'm leading a Charlotte team again this year, and it's called once again Pete's Pack. You can sign up and you can join the team and walk with us. It's on October eighteenth, that truest field. Sign up at alz dot org slash walk and then you can search for my team name Pete's Pack. There's also a link at thepetepod dot com. There's also a link in the description of this podcast. Also, I'll be am seeing the Gastonia Walk on October eleventh, and so you can make a team and join that one too, or make a donation and help me hit my goal of five thousand dollars. If you do, I really appreciate it. There are a bunch of other walks all over the Carolinas. You can go to alz dot org slash walk for all the dates and locations. We're closer than ever to stopping Alzheimer's. Can you help us get there? Will you walk with me? For a different future, for families, for more time for treatments. This is why we walk. Richard, Welcome to the program. Hello Richard, Good afternoon, sir. The last thing you said before the break, how the law enforcement officials said there was no indication that this sort of thing could have happened. No, maybe they were asleep the fourteen times. Yeah, he was arrested. What they're talking about is that there was What they're talking about, there was no indication at the moment in the car. For the entire time he was on the car, there was no verbal altercation, there was no provocation, There wasn't anything. He was just sitting there and then he stands up in a tax her. That's what they were talking about. But to the point, but they're not taking any responsibility for the fact that this guy had been arrested and the judicial system that's actually acting in this case like a guy in a coma. Well that's there. So there's a difference. Cops have done what they were supposed to have done over the years, Right, They've arrested him and that's all that they can keep doing. So they've been doing their jobs, and so this isn't really a law officer problem, right, This is a local elected official. And I know city council doesn't enforce the laws and such, but they do have the ability to beef up the security on their own transit system, and they have the bully pulpit, you know, they can call for action. They can put political pressure on the judicial court system. And that's really where this stuff sort of points all back to, is the court system. That's the breakdown. Yeah, the breakdown is the judicial system. Yeah. Absolutely, we have a good day, by. Hi, buddy. Yeah, you too, appreciate it. Richard Vye Lyles, the mayor, issued a statement Saturday after the video was released started going viral, and she posted on Saturday morning on Twitter formerly known as x quote, the video of the heartbreaking attack that took Irena Zurutzka's life is now public. I want to thank our media partners and community members who have chosen not to repost or share the footage out of respect for Arena's family. So she's shaming the media. Now. I don't know. She does not differentiate as to whether or not she's talking about the edited version that does not show the actual point of impact right, the cutting, the stabbing part, right, or if she's talking about just in general the video. I don't know. It seems like it sounds like she's not happy that this video was published, and she's making she's going to try to shame the media by saying, basically, you should not have published that because it's hurtful to the family, right. But it's also hurtful to her because now she's having to tweet about it on a Saturday morning. Now Charlotte is the focal point of international coverage all of a sudden. Whereas they may have thought they had, you know, dodged a bullet on this one and had gotten you know, gotten past it. They gotten away with it, but gotten past it. She says, this was a senseless and tragic loss. My prayers remain with her loved ones as they continue to grieve through unimaginable time and unimaginable time. Like so many of you, I'm heartbroking and I've been thinking hard about what safety really looks like in our city. I have some ideas. Yeah, how about a cop on all the trains start there? How about fair collection, cracking down on fair skipping? Right, how about using your pulpit in order to hammer away at the court system and the magistrates who turn these people loose. How about that? If I have to bet, though, I bet she's going to go after the General Assembly because they're Republicans. And by the way, Republicans, they could do something about this too. At the General Assembly. They can increase funding for prosecutors in Charlotte. Sure they could do that. They could crack down with amendments to law, which they have done. They have done some of this stuff over the last session or two, trying to tighten up laws, cracked harsher, crackdowns on rioting and that sort of thing. But this always comes back to the DA. And look the DA here, Spencer Merriweather. He keeps saying he needs more prosecutors, So fund them, give them the money. The judicial system actually makes more than it costs. Do you know that it makes more money than it costs? They is is a revenue generator, So take the money, put it towards more prosecutors. The city council could also beef up the police force. They could add way more officers. By the way, Congress can do grants for more local cops. State can do grants for more local cops. Right, everybody can play a part. Like people want to place blame, and there's enough blame to go around. But how about offering some solutions because, like you know me, I'm all about solutions. Game on Week one starts now, and every touchdown brings you closer to a payout. With Draft Kings sports Book and official sports betting partner of the NFL, this isn't just football, it's first touchdown fireworks anytime. TD rushes live bets that ride every momentum shift that DraftKings every play is your next shot to win. Will the Panthers win? Will we even get a touchdown? New customers bet just five dollars and get three hundred dollars in bonus bets instantly, plus get over two hundred dollars off NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. So your season starts now. Download the Draft Kings sports Book app and use code Pete to get three hundred dollars in bonus bets instantly when you place your first bet of five dollars or more plus over two hundred dollars off NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV, but you got to use promo code PETE. In partnership with DraftKings, the Crown is yours. Gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler In New York call eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text hope and why A four six seven three six nine. In Connecticut. Help is available for a problem gambling called eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven, or visit CCPG dot org. Play responsibly on behalf of Boothill, casino and Resort Kansas. Fees may apply in Illinois twenty one plus. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance. Se Sportsbook dot DraftKings dot com, slash promos NFL Sunday Ticket offer for new subscribers only and auto renews until canceled. Digital games and commercial use excluded. Restrictions apply additional NFL Sunday Ticket terms or at YouTube dot com slash Go slash NFL Sunday ticket slash terms limited timeofer. I just saw uh Brett Jensen from Breaking with Brett Jensen here wbt uh. He just retweeted I had not seen this A post from our Attorney General in North Carolina F. Jackson aka Baby Jesus. He just tweeted this at one eighteen pm, so about twenty minutes ago, and he says this was an outrageously heinous and vicious act. Arena Zerutzka Arena was killed while sitting peacefully, an innocent life taken in a shocking and brutal way. We have told the district attorney who is leading the prosecution, that our office will provide any and all support to deliver justice. We will remain steadfast until that justice is achieved. How about I don't know, trying to prevent the next one from happening too? But also why now it's been as Brett pointed out, it's been seventeen days since the murder. Why just now? Why On the Monday after the release of the video. Oh yeah, so the Mecklenburg District Attorney talked to Axios dot Com and Alexandria Sans reports it as such a deadly stabbing on Charlotte's light rail system is exposing the cracks in Mecklenburg County's mental health and justice systems. So there's already the framing. It's exposing the cracks. She points out how the attacker's mother blamed the courts. We talked about that. There was an earlier report. I think it may have been WSOC that did that, like two weeks ago. She then cites another example. In August, CMPD got into a shootout with a man described as acting erratically. The family had tried to get an involuntary commitment for the man the day before, but a Mecklenburg County magistrate denied the request. You see that there's a pattern here, and maybe Baby Jesus could look into the pattern of magistrates and judges. They keep letting people go without these types of psychiatric assessments or involuntary commitments, and such a very few commit a disproportionate gross amount of the crimes. It has always been that way. These are people that are known to law enforcement, generally speaking. District Attorney Spencer Merriweather could not directly comment on the case, which I understand, but he said broadly, defendants often must undergo an evaluation to determine whether they are mentally capable of assisting in their own defense. Merriweather noted some defendants stay in mental health facilities for years while the court waits for them to reach the capacity to stand trial. In some instances, judges eventually dismiss the cases, releasing people who committed dangerous acts. He also says the standards for involuntary commitment are more complex than they seem. Brown was released from jail without bond back in January. When he called the cops, he told them that somebody had injected him with some man made material that was making it was controlling what he said and what he did and how he would you walk and talk and whatever. So he was claiming to be under the control of somebody else, and the cops that had responded, they said, well, we're police. That sounds like a medical issue. He became angry, and so he called nine to one one while they were standing there trying to get more police out there, and they're like, you're misusing the nine one one system, and so they brought him in, and the public defender at the time questioned his ability to proceed in his own court case. The judge ordered a forensic evaluation, which was never done, and Brown stayed out of custody. Do you see the problem? See, I don't think that's a crack in the system, or as our colleague here at WBT, Brett Winterbole says, the system failed. See this way, everybody gets to avoid any kind of culpability. Wasn't our fault. Somebody else didn't do something or something and the system that we had there was a gap in the system and that's what failed. It wasn't us. Even though his own lawyer, the public defender, was like, yeah, this guy's crazy. I mean, they didn't say that, but they basically did, he's crazy. He needs some sort of psyche valt. Even the judge is like, yeah, probably let's do that, and then it's never done. Oops, cracking the system. System failed. No one's to blame. His past convictions include armed robbery, felony, larsony breaking, an enery shoplifting. In the early two thousands, lawmakers slashed the number of state hospital beds without adequately funding community care as part of a national movement to deinstitutionalize mental health. That's according to Axios early two thousands, Who did that? Who did that in North Carolina, that would be the Democrats. They were in charge of the legislature through twenty eleven. They had a lockdown on the governor's office as well. They have had a lockdown on the Attorney General's office. That was Roy Cooper all those years Meriweather. The DA points to some systemic improvements, especially in handling repeat, repeat offenders. In twenty twenty three, the Pre Trial Integrity Act became law. It requires judges, not magistrates, to set release conditions for eighteen violent offenses. That would be the Republican legislature that did that. Judges can also now decide the conditions for defendants who are facing any type of new offense while awaiting trial for another, which means if somebody is charged with a misdemeanor let's say, like public urination or misuse of the nine one one system, and they've got some other case that's pending, than a judge could order a mental health assessment, whereas a magistrate would not you get or another misdemeanor fair evasion because the guy who attacked this woman on the train had skipped the fair he never paid for his ticket. The DA suggests considering tighter punishments for such offenses. We're using these types of minor violations as a means of early intervention. Okay, ah, I would say not the latter. I think your first instinct on that was right. Tighter punishments. Once again, public mass transit only works in a high trust society. You do not get a high trust society if people can commit misdemeanor after misdemeanor after misdemeanor, they can they can skip the fares, they can ride the trains for free, they can pee everywhere, they can beat up people whatever. Like you don't have a high trust society, then you don't get to have a mass transit system that works. And as the president of El Salvador, Naib Bukeiley has said, you cannot build infrastructure on top of chaos, and he is exactly right. Crime is chaos. All right. You hear me talk a lot about incentives, right, Well, let's talk about incentive trips, the kind that companies offer employees to fire them up and reward their teams. If you own a business or you work somewhere that offers these incentive trips, first off, good for you, but also there is a custom app that's a game changer for these trips. It's called Incentive Tripkit. Private group messaging, shared photos, You're itinerary travel details, all built into a single, easy to use app. There's even a traveler locator so Carl from Accounting doesn't get left behind. The best part about Incentive trip Kit it's totally private. No email captures, no sign ups, no cringe ads. It's simple, clean and secure. And when the trip is over, Incentive trip Kit turns those highlights into a professional storytelling video. So think about it. When you launch next year's incentive trip campaign, that video becomes your greatest motivator. Talk about a return on investment, right, You got to check out incentive trip Kit for your business. Visit incentive tripkit dot com because great trips deserve even better returns real quick. I have my rules of journalisming. You've heard me discuss them in the past, and rule number two is that if the scandal is about a Republican, then the story is the scandal. If the scandal involves democrat, then the story is the Republican reaction to the scandal. Okay, so what we are seeing now that the video of the murder of the Arena Zurutzka has gone viral. Now we are getting the journalism in rule number two applied. So now it's about the Republican reaction. This is where you start getting Republicans pouncing publican seizing right. These are the words that media use in order to form a frame and form the narrative, in order to deflect away from the actual story and focus on those bad people are taking advantage of this situation. How dare they point out that this occurred. They're more angry that the story has gone viral because they don't get to gate keep it. And if you want a juxtaposition, if you want the proof of what I am saying, one man's name, Daniel Penny, and the fact that you know his name proves what I'm telling you is correct. This is not as was said during the Kermit Gosnell trial by a Washington Post reporter who said this was a local crime story because Kurmit Gosnell was murdering babies, but he was doing it under the auspices of an abortion clinic, sorry women's healthcare center that killed women, and he would collect trophies of the dead babies, right, put him in jars in his office and such, that's a local crime story, and that's why that story didn't get national attention. Right, Daniel Penny restrains a deranged man on a New York City subway and that guy, the deranged man, dies and Daniel Penny gets charged, and now we have to have the national conversation about race and about homelessness and mental health and like all of these other things. But the point here is about the coverage that story was covered in all of the legacy outlets, national filtering down to the locals all over America. This one. It took the release of this video, that's what now has forced media outlets to have to cover it. And those that get dragged to the story, they cover it through this prism of Republicans pouncing Axios, Mark Copudo, mega influencers are drawing repeated attention to violent attacks to elevate the issue of urban crime and accuse mainstream media of undercovering, undercovering shocking cases. Yes, because you are. That's why local media covers these stories. Our local media has covered this story, but the nationals are nowhere to be found, and we all know why. Okay, well, all Dean, Welcome to the show. Hello Dean, Hi, p Hey, Let's say. Hey, all this conversation about transit systems and everything, I thought I'd do just a little bit of research because rather than analyze the event, maybe come up with a solution. Solutions, right, I do prefer it, Okay, And what I researched and researched, and I couldn't find any transit system to model against. I mean, any public transit seems to be it seems to be systemic, So I really I couldn't come up with a solution there. So the only thing I could come up with it seems to function as far as transit or wrap it goes, is to privatize it. And then. You know, is that a solution or is there something sure where it is working? No? I mean there are systems over throughout the world where it works a lot better for various reasons. If you're trying to compare it to American systems, there are varying degrees of quote unquote successful. But it depends on what your metric is for success. If you're talking about crime and safety, that's one metric, But if you're talking about like revenue generation, I mean, none of them really actually make money. Just depends on what you're what you're trying to engineer for, uh Dan, I appreciate the call. The Axios article, by the way, is not the only one we had. Thomas Mills of Politics NC fame. It's a blog anyway, Democrat consultant guy, and he went after you know, Republicans for how dare they draw attention to this? W faees got the headline video of links blue line stabbing sparks national outrage, including from inside the White House. Elon Musk repeatedly posted about the case this weekend, also commenting White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Trump confidant Charlie Kirk, Senator Mike Lee, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, North Carolina Senate candidate Michael Wattley going after Roy Cooper on all of this as you as you should expect, as you should expect. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecleanershow dot com again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.