Axios doesn’t just report on crime — they spin it as politics. Their coverage of the brutal murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, North Carolina, turned a horrific stabbing into a political narrative. Instead of focusing on how a career criminal was allowed back on the streets, Axios framed the story as Republicans exploiting tragedy.
On August 22, Zarutska, 23, boarded a Charlotte light-rail train after work. Surveillance footage shows her sitting in front of Decarlos Brown Jr., a 34-year-old with a long criminal and psychiatric history. Without warning, Brown pulled a knife and stabbed her multiple times, including in the neck. The attack was unprovoked and ended her life within minutes. Brown exited the train and was arrested at the next station. He had at least 14 prior arrests, including armed robbery and larceny, and had been released without bail earlier this year after another arrest despite red flags about his mental health.
Yet Axios chose to frame the story with this headline:
That headline suggests the killing itself is less important than how conservatives are responding to it. The word fuels implies Republicans are using the murder not as a tragedy to expose real crime, but as ammunition to push a political agenda.
Axios continues:
MAGA influencers are drawing repeated attention to violent attacks to elevate the issue of urban crime — and accuse mainstream media of under-covering shocking cases.
The word elevate — defined as to raise to a more important or impressive level — suggests Republicans are inflating the importance of crime for political advantage. But violent crime is not an exaggeration. It’s a daily reality in cities across America, especially those run by Democrats.
And the word accuse is just as loaded. It makes Republicans sound conspiratorial, as if pointing out media silence on horrific crimes is some baseless charge — when in fact, it’s true. The media does downplay stories that don’t fit their narrative.
Axios then adds its so-called reality check:
As Republicans have consistently highlighted crime, Democrats have accurately pointed out that violent crime rates have been decreasing since pre-pandemic highs.
In Axios’ telling, Republicans merely “highlight” crime — as though they’re just trying to shine a political spotlight on it — while Democrats get credit for “accurately” pointing out statistics.
Axios even closed with a “What’s next” section:
Trump won’t just discuss this case once, his team says. He’s going to keep highlighting crime because it’s important to him — and he believes it moves voters as the GOP tries to keep control of Congress in next year’s midterms.
This wording is Axios’ reporting and interpretation, not a verbatim quote from Trump or his team. It frames the focus on crime as a calculated political strategy, implying election-motivated intent.
Trump condemned the attack as “horrific” and described Brown as a “lunatic” and a “career criminal.”
He said:
“There are evil people, and we have to confront that. … If we don’t handle that, we don’t have a country.”
He also blasted cashless bail, stressing that violent criminals should never be back on the streets. At no point did Trump or his team describe his concern as a political strategy. Axios made that leap for him, framing concern about crime as a campaign move rather than a public safety issue.
Democrat politicians and their media allies keep mentioning a decline in crime, but the violence was concentrated in Democrat-run cities like Chicago, Washington D.C., New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Detroit, St. Louis, and Minneapolis — the very places where murders and violent assaults jumped the highest. That drop wasn’t because of Democrat leadership. It was because of President Donald Trump’s tough-on-crime agenda that made America safer — from immigration enforcement and deportations that removed dangerous criminals from the country, to cracking down on gang violence and MS-13, and expanding support for law enforcement.
By contrast, Democrat policies — slashed police budgets, no-cash bail, soft-on-crime prosecutors, early-release programs, sanctuary city protections, and anti-police rhetoric — made 2020 and 2021 the deadliest years in decades. Those same policies are still keeping America unsafe today.
Reality check for Axios: Crime isn’t a talking point. It’s the deadly consequence of Democrat policies.
Read Her Obituary, See Photos, Write On Tribute Wall at https://www.jamesfuneralhomelkn.com/obituaries/iryna-zarutska
BLM Trolls Desecrate Tribute Wall Of Ukrainian Refugee Murdered By Black Man