Zarutska Family Takes Charlotte to Court, Alleging Security Failures Left Light Rail Dangerously Exposed

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — One year after 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska was fatally stabbed aboard Charlotte’s light-rail system, her family is taking the city and its private security contractor to court, alleging that a chain of longstanding security failures helped create the dangerous conditions surrounding her death.

The wrongful-death lawsuit was filed in Mecklenburg County Superior Court against the City of Charlotte and Professional Security Services, the private contractor providing security for the Charlotte Area Transit System.

At the center of the complaint is a straightforward accusation: Zarutska’s family says the killing was not simply an unforeseeable tragedy. They contend that Charlotte officials and the transit security contractor knew serious safety problems existed but failed to provide adequate protection.

The allegations have not been proven in court.

But the lawsuit arrives after government investigations themselves raised disturbing questions about security throughout the transit system.

Zarutska had escaped the war in Ukraine and come to the United States seeking safety and a new life. On Aug. 22, 2025, she was returning home from work aboard a LYNX Blue Line train when prosecutors say Decarlos Brown Jr. attacked her.

Brown has been charged with murder in connection with her death. His criminal case has been delayed after he was found incompetent to proceed in the state prosecution. He also faces a separate federal case.

Now Zarutska’s family is asking a different question:

Why was an American public transportation system allegedly so poorly protected in the first place?

According to the lawsuit, there was no security officer aboard Zarutska’s train when she was attacked.

The complaint also targets what the family describes as inadequate fare enforcement, insufficient physical barriers preventing unauthorized riders from entering the rail system and chronic security understaffing.

Family attorney Lauren Newton said the case exposes what she described as “systemic failures” inside CATS that existed for years.

The lawsuit alleges that Brown entered the transit system without paying. Local reporting has previously documented video showing him traveling through Charlotte’s transit network before boarding the light rail on which Zarutska was killed.

That allegation matters because fare enforcement is not merely about collecting a few dollars.

On a public transportation network, controlled access, visible enforcement and security personnel can form part of the first line of defense protecting ordinary passengers.

When those safeguards disappear, law-abiding riders are the ones left exposed.

The lawsuit further alleges that Professional Security Services had 183 security personnel and only 11 armed guards around the time of the attack, despite a contract allowing for significantly greater staffing — including as many as 219 security positions and 39 armed personnel.

The precise staffing circumstances are now among the issues that could be tested through the litigation.

A preliminary review released by North Carolina State Auditor Dave Boliek’s office after Zarutska’s killing independently found major fluctuations in armed security staffing at CATS. The auditor reported that shortly after the murder, officials said the contractor was providing roughly 186 personnel while continuing efforts to fill vacant positions.

More alarming, the auditor cited a Federal Transit Administration determination that the rate of crimes against CATS passengers was three times the national average.

Those findings make this case larger than another lawsuit seeking compensation after a horrific crime.

They raise fundamental questions about what Americans should be able to expect from their government.

Citizens pay taxes. They pay transit fares. They follow the rules.

In return, the government has one obligation that comes before political slogans, social experiments and bureaucratic excuses:

Protect innocent people.

No city can guarantee that a violent criminal will never attack someone. America is a free country, not a police state, and no transportation system can eliminate every risk.

But government can enforce laws.

It can control access.

It can deploy security officers.

It can respond to documented patterns of violence.

And when officials know a transit system is facing serious security problems, they have a responsibility to act before another passenger becomes a statistic.

The Zarutska lawsuit argues that Charlotte failed that basic test.

The complaint reportedly points to earlier homicides and assaults in and around Blue Line stations as evidence that violent crime on the system was foreseeable.

Newton has argued that adequate fare enforcement and security staffing could have changed what happened aboard the train.

“If there had been a security guard on that train, Iryna Zarutska would be here,” she told WBTV.

That assertion will ultimately have to withstand scrutiny in court.

Charlotte has declined to publicly address the lawsuit’s allegations, citing its policy against commenting on active litigation. Professional Security Services had not responded publicly to requests for comment in several local reports following the filing.

The family is seeking damages and says the litigation is also intended to force lasting improvements in transit safety.

That goal should resonate far beyond Charlotte.

Public transportation cannot function if ordinary Americans believe they are entering spaces where rules are optional, security is absent and violent offenders encounter fewer barriers than the citizens simply trying to get home from work.

A functioning country does not ask law-abiding people to become accustomed to disorder.

It restores order.

A functioning city does not dismiss fare enforcement as insignificant while asking taxpayers to finance a transit network.

It enforces the rules.

And a government worthy of public trust does not wait until somebody is dead before discovering that basic security measures mattered.

There have been changes since Zarutska’s killing. Charlotte officials have increased attention to security and fare enforcement, while state and federal authorities have examined CATS operations.

The Federal Transit Administration also completed a focused safety audit of CATS in February 2026 after heightened concerns about violence and transit-worker safety.

But Zarutska’s family is arguing that reforms after her death cannot erase what allegedly happened before it.

That is the uncomfortable heart of this lawsuit.

America welcomed a young woman who had fled war looking for security and opportunity.

She should have been able to ride home from work safely.

Her family is now asking a court to determine whether the institutions responsible for protecting that public transportation system failed to provide reasonable safeguards — and whether those failures contributed to a killing they believe could have been prevented.

Charlotte will have its opportunity to defend itself. So will its security contractor. The evidence should determine legal responsibility, not political rhetoric.

But one principle requires no trial to establish.

Public safety is not optional.

American cities exist to serve their citizens, and government’s first responsibility is protecting innocent people — not explaining afterward why the system failed.

For Iryna Zarutska’s family, that demand for accountability has now moved from public outrage into a courtroom.