The Democratic congresswoman who represents Charlotte defended the city’s cashless bail system against President Donald Trump’s criticism, arguing that the man who brutally stabbed a Ukrainian woman should have received mental health treatment rather than been held on traditional bail that might have prevented the attack.
Iryna Zarutska, 23, was killed on August 22 after she was brutally stabbed multiple times by the man sitting behind her on the light rail.
Decarlos Brown, 34, a criminal with an extensive rap sheet, was arrested shortly after police arrived on the scene.
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Brown was known to local authorities and had already been arrested 14 times before he randomly attacked the Ukrainian woman who fled from her country amid its ongoing war.
‘The perpetrator was a well known career criminal, who had been previously arrested and released on cashless bail in January, a total of 14 times,’ Trump said of the incident. ‘What the hell was he doing riding the train, and walking the streets? Criminals like this need to be locked up.’
But Rep. Alma Adams, D-N.C., says Trump is wrong and rejected the president’s calls for stricter criminal detention for violent repeat offenders.
‘You can’t solve everything by putting people in jail,’ she told the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview when pressed on Trump’s cashless bail claim. ‘We can’t jail our way out of some of the situations that are going on.’
‘I don’t necessarily agree with the president about the cash bail,’ she added. ‘We can’t overlook the illnesses that people have, and especially mental illness.’
She was adamant that the crisis really stemmed from mental issues and could not have been prevented with Brown’s incarceration.
‘I think we’ve got to look at helping if there’s some mental health issues, we need to put more support there, which we have not done,’ she added.
However, for the past several years, Democratic leaders in North Carolina have passed some of the most significant investments for mental health in the state’s history.
The state’s 2023-2025 budget included $835 million in mental health funding. The plan also specifically included nearly $100 million to help formerly incarcerated individuals.
The mental health funding was lauded as historic at the time.
Adams told the Daily Mail she is researching cuts to this mental health funding.
‘There are lots of services that can be provided for people that we need, that some of them are being covered, but a lot of the dollars are being filtered out.’
She did not elaborate on how the money was being siphoned out of the mental health fund.
When pressed by the Daily Mail on how Brown was arrested 14 times before he stabbed Zarutska, Adams responded that ‘we have to deal with where people are.’
‘Violent criminals, yes, we need to address that, but we also have to address a lot of what’s going on today. The mental health is connected, it seems to me. So we can’t, we can’t address one without the other.’
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