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Just days after another stabbing on Charlotte’s light rail, and only days after Iryna’s Law went into effect, Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden warned that it would lead to dangerous overcrowding.
North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein signed Iryna’s Law in October, which was named after 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska, who was stabbed to death on the Charlotte light rail in August. Decarlos Brown Jr., a repeat offender, has been charged in her murder. The legislation imposes stricter pretrial release rules for repeat and violent offenders.
Speaking at a Monday news conference, the sheriff said the law adds numerous new requirements for his office and added that politicians used Zarutska’s stabbing as a “political agenda.”
“And we believe that the only reason that this caught national attention is because it was caught on video and it was displayed across the United States, and our local politicians at that time saw it was a political agenda, or they could highlight her as a refugee and not an immigrant,” McFadden said. “This is why they created Iryna’s Law.”
Sheriff Garry McFadden discussed Iryna’s Law on Monday, Dec. 8. (Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office/Facebook)
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McFadden insisted that the new legislation will lead to overcrowding in Mecklenburg County Jail.
“This law will cause our detention centers’ numbers to rise. We will have more people staying inside a detention center at a longer stay than normally. Because it attacks the new bond referendum and it attacks also the discretion that the magistrates and the judge has on releasing people,” he said.
Iryna Zarutska curls up in fear as a man looms over her during a disturbing attack on a Charlotte, N.C. light rail train. (NewsNation via Charlotte Area Transit System)
The sheriff said that following Zarutska’s violent attack in August, local judges “were attacked violently on social media.”
“And we took additional measures to protect them because of the violent nature of social media, and parts of other media, and also just the violence that they received just personally,” he said. “And so, they live in fear now, and I have to say that, because for an entire day, we had to talk to the magistrates on how to live safely, how to travel safely, and in the middle of all of that, they were concerned after the shooting of Charlie Kirk, because they said to me, ‘Well, what if they shoot me because of this?’ And so, they’re going to be more cautious and reluctant to allow people to be released.”
Ukrainian Iryna Zarutska came to the U.S. to escape war but was stabbed to death in Charlotte. (Evgeniya Rush/GoFundMe)
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He argued that county staff will now be responsible for managing “a much more difficult population,” particularly individuals with heightened mental-health needs who must remain in custody longer under the new rules.
“On top of the other population, of the people who are arrested for robbery, rape and murder. All these people are still gonna be housed here at the detention center. So when people say, ‘Well, is that gonna cause a problem for your staff?’ Of course, it is. Why? Because my staff is not gonna be subject to having to deal with people with much more mental health problems than we had in the past. Or we’re gonna be dealing with families who will not understand why their loved ones are not being released.”
WATCH: North Carolina lawmakers pass tough-on-crime bill in honor of Iryna Zarutska
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The sheriff said that none of the new requirements were accompanied by state funding.
“House Bill 307 did not bring us any resources, and it did not bring any funding,” he said, adding that lawmakers should not impose such sweeping mandates without input from the agencies that must carry them out.
He asked legislators in Raleigh to include sheriffs in future conversations about criminal-justice policy, saying they “need a seat at the table and a voice” when new laws directly affect local detention operations.