Iryna Zarutska was 23 years old. She had fled a Ukraine devastated by Russian bombs, leaving behind rubble and millions of displaced people. In Charlotte, North Carolina, she had started over with her family. She painted, worked with brushes and canvases, and nurtured the dream of a normal life. Every day she took the LYNX Blue Line light rail to get around.
On August 22, that routine was shattered. On the same train was Decarlos Brown Jr., 34, a man with a long history of violent crimes and psychiatric problems. Without reason, he stabbed her in the throat with a knife. Iryna died on the spot. Brown was arrested and sent for psychiatric evaluation. Another life taken by a repeat offender who should never have been free.
We were among the first in Italy to report this story, in the deafening silence of the mainstream media. CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post only began covering it 20 days later, when the case exploded nationally, triggered by the intervention of influential figures: her death did not fit the woke narrative—until it became impossible to ignore.
The case entered public debate when Donald Trump, from the White House, broke the silence: «Iryna Zarutska was a young woman living the American dream: her horrific murder is the direct result of failed policies that protect criminals instead of the safety of citizens. We cannot allow violent repeat offenders to continue spreading death and destruction across our Country».
His words exposed the chaos and public safety problems in cities governed by the left, where policies such as cashless bail—zero bail, allowing immediate release even for repeat criminals—turn innocent citizens into defenseless targets.
This story is glaring proof of the double standard of the mainstream media. In the West, information—once the pillar of democracy—has been reduced to a propaganda tool serving political and ideological elites. The rule is simple: victims only matter if they serve the progressive narrative. It is not just an American problem, but a disease infecting the entire West, Italy included.
One name above all: Brian Stelter, longtime CNN anchor and host of Reliable Sources, presented as a critical analysis of the media but in reality a bastion of the liberal line. Author of one-sided books against conservatives, promoter of Russiagate and among the first to dismiss the Hunter Biden laptop as “Russian disinformation,” Stelter perfectly embodies the role of “guardian of the narrative.” He was fired from CNN in 2022, when the network’s new ownership tried—unsuccessfully—to shake off its reputation as a progressive megaphone.
Faced with the Zarutska case, instead of denouncing the failure of a justice system that keeps dangerous criminals on the streets, Stelter—speaking on CNN—accused figures like Elon Musk and Charlie Kirk of “racism” for pointing out the truth: that the victim was an innocent refugee and the killer a repeat offender released under the left’s indulgent policies. The same hypocrisy that in 2020 turned George Floyd, a repeat offender who died during an arrest, into a global symbol, justifying months of violent riots.
Here lies the double standard: when it serves the narrative, a fact becomes myth. When reality exposes the failures of progressivism, silence falls. But the Zarutska case is not just about America. It reflects a West that has lost its bond with truth. Language is power: whoever controls words, controls reality. That is why the media prefer to censor, label, and silence. The woke dogma tolerates no exceptions: those who resist are demonized. It is the same mechanism that in Europe leads to citizens being arrested for an “inconvenient” post, suffocating free thought with laws disguised as protections against “hate speech.”
The death of Iryna Zarutska is a warning. It reminds us that freedom dies not only when a tyrant tramples it, but also when the media—who should defend it—betray it. This is the most dangerous betrayal, because it happens in silence, in the folds of news that no longer informs but indoctrinates.
The real question, then, is not only which lives matter, but above all: which criminals do the media choose to cover? The West has already seen horrific cases buried “not to fuel hate.” In the United Kingdom, for years the truth about girls raped by gangs of Pakistani immigrants was hidden, and the same pattern repeats itself daily: if the criminal is black or Muslim, the news is downplayed or buried; if he is white and Western, it is amplified until it becomes a political symbol.
This is the real double standard: a selective narrative that defends not truth, but an ideological agenda. And this is where the future of the West is at stake. Because without truth there is no justice, and without justice there is no freedom. Telling stories like Iryna’s means breaking the silence and defending our civilization from its own lies.
SHOCKING: Newly surfaced footage has been released revealing not one passenger on the train helped Iryna Zarutska after she was st*bbed.https://t.co/JMSIkFptks
— Resist the Mainstream (@ResisttheMS) September 9, 2025
