CNN's Brian Stelter says 'pro-Trump activists' seized on Charlotte stabbing, rips 'baldly racist' comments

CNN media analyst Brian Stelter said the fatal stabbing of 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska is being used as a "political symbol" by "pro-Trump activists." 

Recently released video of Zarutska's killing last month in Charlotte, North Carolina, spread across social media. The clip shows 34-year-old Decarlos Brown standing up behind her on a light rail train and stabbing her with a pocketknife. Brown has been charged with first-degree murder.

"Most murders in the U.S. never become national news," Stelter began Monday during a CNN segment. "This one's got our attention for a couple of reasons. No. 1, first and foremost, the recent release of that gruesome video. Second, the energy from pro-Trump activists. They picked up on this video from local news and ran with it." 

"It's a little bit like the times when civil rights groups have raised attention about police-involved shootings. In this case, it is Trump-aligned influencers who are posting up a storm about this case on social media, really over the weekend," Stelter continued. "Elon Musk, Charlie Kirk, other Trump-aligned figures succeeded in making this senseless death a symbol of big city crime." 

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Stelter, who said the murder became a "political symbol" for "MAGA media" in pushing for harsher punishments and more incarcerations, also suggested there was a racial element to the outrage because the suspect, 34-year-old Decarlos Brown, is Black.

"I have to say, some of the replies to Musk, some of the comments around this story are baldly racist, stoking fear of African Americans because this man attacked a White woman," Stelter told CNN's Brianna Keilar. "The open racism on sites like X today, it's eye popping. But there are also legitimate questions about this so-called career criminal, someone who had been a repeat offender. And those questions, I hope they're not lost amid all of the cesspool kind of comments on social media."

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Zarutska came to the U.S. as a refugee fleeing war-torn Ukraine after Russia's 2022 invasion. She had been working at a pizzeria in Charlotte and was still wearing her uniform the night she was attacked, just after 9:45 p.m. on Aug. 22.

Records obtained by Fox News Digital show that Brown has had more than a dozen arrests going back at least a decade, including convictions for felony larceny and felony breaking and entering in 2013, and a 2015 conviction for robbery with a dangerous weapon that sent him to prison for more than six years. He was released in 2020 but remained on parole until 2021, and subsequent charges against him included communicating threats and misuse of the 911 system earlier this year.

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President Donald Trump condemned the "madman" behind Zarutska's death while offering his condolences to her family.

"A lunatic just got up and started," Trump said of the suspect. "It's right on tape. Not really watchable because it's so horrible, but just viciously stabbed. She's just sitting there."

Fox News' Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.