Episode 210

The gruesome murder of Iryna Zarutska on a public train in Charlotte, North Carolina shocked the world. Completely unprovoked and unexpected, the Ukrainian refugee’s death added to the heavy and persistent burden we groan under: the realization that things have gone terribly wrong in our nation and the principalities we wrestle against (and the people submitted to their evil influence) are increasingly belligerent, malicious, and daring. The murderer, an evil serial offender who was a menace even to his own family, walked away unbothered as Iryna died right in her seat where he attacked her. How could this have happened? What could have been done to prevent this? How is it that no one came to her aid until it was too late? And how is it that we did not hear about her murder until two weeks after it happened? On this episode of the Removing Barriers podcast, we will talk about this tragedy, discussing what it means for our nation, who we are as a people, and what the Bible has to say about the evil that we are seeing unfold every day. Iryna Zarutska, a soul for which Christ died.

[Jay]

Thank you for tuning in to the Removing Barriers Podcast. I’m Jay and I’m MCG. And we’re attempting to remove barriers so we can all have a clear view of the cross.

[MCG]

This is episode 210 of the Removing Barriers Podcast. And in this episode, we’ll be looking at the incident surrounding the death of Iryna Zarutska by the hands of DeCarlos Brown Jr.

[Jay]

Hi, this is Jay. MCG and I would like for you to help us remove barriers by going to removingbarriers.net and subscribing to receive all things Removing Barriers. If you’d like to take your efforts a bit further and help us keep the mics on, consider donating at removingbarriers.net/donate. Removing barriers, a clear view of the cross.

[MCG]

Alright Jay, let’s start it out by… Talking about who was Iryna. She’s not necessarily a household name, and folks may not have heard of her.

[Jay]

Iryna Zarutska was a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee. She apparently had fled Ukraine after Putin’s invasion of that country and settled in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she was viciously attacked, unprovoked. by 34-year-old DeCarlos Brown Jr., and I have to say allegedly, where he stabbed her in the neck and left her for dead. And she ultimately died right there in her seat from her injuries. And it happened on, her death was on the 22nd of August in 2025. and it was not covered by the mainstream media in any way, shape, or form until pundits and people on the right brought the incident to light, highlighting a lot of the problems that they see with Democratic Party rule in these cities and also the hypocrisy of the mainstream media to ignore crime or media stories that involve crime where a black person is a perpetrator against a white person. And so this is how this story came to now, I believe, international fame and recognition because of those political undertones as well.

[MCG]

Right. I have a news article that goes into a little bit more details about the incident that happened. So I’m going to play that now and then rule.

[News Audio]

The murder of a Ukrainian refugee on a Charlotte light rail train is now making international headlines. Newly released surveillance video shows the moment that Iryna Zarutska was fatally stabbed in a horrific August assault. The suspect, who police say is a homeless man with a violent history, is waking up behind bars, being held without bond. And as investigators piece together what sparked this heinous attack, that disturbing video is raising new questions about crime, mental illness, and public safety. I do want to warn you first. that this chilling footage is very hard to watch. Iryna Zarutska fled war-torn Ukraine for a new life in Charlotte. On August 22nd, tragedy struck after she left work at a local pizzeria just before 10 P.m. and got on a city train. On her ride home, with headphones on and eyes on her phone, Iryna sat just in front of a man, now identified as DeCarlos Brown Jr. Brown pulled out a pocket knife and stabbed her three times in the neck. Iryna collapsed and died. Passengers rushed in to help her as Brown slipped off at the next stop, quickly arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Charlotte’s mayor, Vi Lyles, called the attack senseless and tragic, pledging to make the city feel safe for everyone.

[News Audio]

We’re not going to stand for it. And we’re going to come in. We’re going to clean it up. You’re going to be safe within two weeks.

[News Audio]

We’re going to bring crime down because we can’t have cities that are unsafe. And Charlotte officials drawing sharp criticism from U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who says this violent act could have been prevented, posting this on social media. This monster had a track record longer than a CVS receipt, including prison. By failing to properly punish him, Charlotte failed Iryna Zarutska and North Carolinians. This is totally unacceptable. Safety needs to be the top priority of elected officials. The case has quickly become a national flashpoint. with conservative commentators and even Elon Musk reigniting debates over justice, race, crime, and media bias. A reminder that so many in this country don’t feel safe, though national crime numbers are actually down. Murders dropping nearly 15% in 2024 from the year before. And in the middle of the mounting scrutiny, an avalanche of support for Irene’s family. A fast-growing GoFundMe campaign for funeral costs has raised 10s of thousands thousands. For a young woman, it says, came here for safety and opportunity. And neighbors describe her as a kind art school graduate with a bright future to match her radiant smile. This is absolutely horrific. Brown is due back in court on September 19th, and Charlotte transit officials say that they’re beefing up security, while Congressman Randy Fine is pushing new legislation to hold judges accountable when repeat offenders strike again, saying, quote, The 12 judges who released a Carlos Brown Jr. should have their date in court, too. End quote there.

[MCG]

All right, so there you have it was a newspaper I found. describe what’s going on and the political undertone of it all. We’re going to talk about that a bit later of how they allegedly maybe have tried to hide this thing from the public because of allegedly, again, race. But of course, the circumstances are running her debt where you have a 23-year-old young lady heading home from work at about 10 p.m. at night, you know, using the Charlotte light rail. And she sat in front of her young black guy, 34-year-old, they call us Brown Jr. And she was just doing what people do these days. She had earbuds in and she was on her phone, whether she was listening to something or just, you know, scrolling social media or texting and whatever the case may be she was doing. But pretty much what everybody does when they sit in public, I guess. And as you said, unprovoked. Four minutes into the ride, he pulled out a pocket knife and basically stabbed her a couple of times in the neck. And let’s talk about him a little bit because we kind of know who she is, a Ukrainian refugee, young 23-year-old woman, just trying to make a life of her own in a foreign country because of her country’s riddled war. And then she come and she met this guy. Carlos Brown Jr. Who was this guy? Or who is this guy since he’s still alive?

[Jay]

Well, I don’t think we know much about him except for what they have put out in news reports. He is 34 years old, in and out of jail from 2007 to the present. And he’s black. That’s pretty much all that we know about him. We do know that he was in jail for about five years, four or five years, and was released in September of 2020. So he was in jail from 2015 to 2020, after which his mother reported to authorities that he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. She couldn’t deal with him any longer. She was afraid for her safety, and she tried many things. things to get him help, including taking him to a mental health facility. I don’t know if it’s an outpatient thing or if it’s a hospital, but she was turned away. They didn’t have enough beds. She took him to a homeless shelter, thinking maybe he could get help that way, and she couldn’t handle it. Who he was before he went in jail in 2015 and after he came out in 2020, were two completely different people, and she really didn’t know what to do with him. She said that she tried and was denied at every turn, and that the system failed her and him. And that’s pretty much all we know. She did say that he had stopped taking his psychiatric medicine, that he was, in fact, diagnosed with schizophrenia, but stopped taking his medication because he felt like the government was trying to get him and that there was some sort of There’s some sort of, quote, material in him that was controlling him, and he believed the government put it in there and that the medications were a way for the government to continue controlling him. And I realized that I just said that we don’t know anything about him, and I’ve just gone on and on and on about his history, but this is all that has come out only as a result of other media sources shining light on this. If it weren’t for other media sources raising the alarm about the silence of the media, we probably wouldn’t have known any of this about him or about her.

[MCG]

Well, he did give a motive into why he did this to his sister when his sister somehow contact him while he’s in jail. And he said that he felt like she was reading his mind or something.

[Jay]

He felt like Iryna was reading his mind.

[MCG]

Yes.

[Jay]

I see.

[MCG]

Something along that side. So definitely there’s some mental issues going on there. But even if you go back to 2015, he was in and out of jail long before 2015. He has been convicted 14 times of different charges. As they say in the news article, his raptures is longer than CVS receipt. And CVS receipts are long. Pretty long. I think the longest they have measured it was like 6 feet of CVS receipt. So I know he’s kind of tongue in treat there, but 14 time convicted federal. And this time when he was out, he was awaiting trial again, and they let him out on cashless bail. So yeah, I do agree that there seems to be, and the history seems to prove it, that there is some sort of mental issues going on. But this is a person who assaulted his own sister, you know. And of course, you mentioned it that his mother begged him for help with him, you know. So he’s definitely a mentally unstable young man that was let out again awaiting trial on cashless bail with a signature promise that he’s going to throw up for his trial. I’m like, you know, are we going to learn that, hey, this guy has nothing to lose or something along that line? Why would he honor that? Then you put him out in the public among people 14 times, even if we had said, you know, strikes you’re out is too harsh. Even if you have gone to 10 strikes you’re out. This guy would have at least been behind bars. But…

[Jay]

Here’s the problem though. What could the state have done if the judge says, okay, hey, you did this thing, you’re going to go to jail for two years. Okay, you did this, you’re going to go to jail for five years, whatever it is. After he served his sentence… What else can they do? They have to release him.

[MCG]

Yeah, but the thing is, he was out on bail. He was awaiting trial again. So therefore, they could have held him.

[Jay]

For something else or for the…

[MCG]

Yeah, for something else, because he was awaiting trial right now for something else besides… I’m not talking about the murder.

[Jay]

Right.

[MCG]

Even before the murder, he was let out awaiting trial on cashless bail. So this could have been prevented, definitely. But anyways…

[Jay]

From their perspective, they are… not wanting to assume that he will reoffend, even though every single metric and statistic we have says that the statistical probability of him reoffending is very high, but they want to be thoughtful and inclusive.

[MCG]

Well, I would understand if he was a first time offender, if he was a second time offender, if he was a third time offender, heck, if he was a eight time offender. But 14 times, at some point, reality had to hit you in the face. I said, This guy doesn’t have anything to lose, and maybe…

[Jay]

And lost his moral compass a long time ago.

[MCG]

Obviously. Anyways, here’s a news article.

[News Audio]

This morning, a new charge against the man accused in that deadly stabbing on Charlotte’s light rail. DeCarlos Brown is already facing state-level first-degree murder charges, and now multiple agencies coming together to say they’re also going to add a federal charge. WCNC Charlotte’s Richard Devane is live explaining how local and federal leaders are standing shoulder to shoulder in this case.

[MCG]

And the reason why they added a federal charge or the federal government is trying to charge them as well is because they don’t trust the state system.

[Jay]

Right.

[MCG]

Oh, anyways.

[News Audio]

Yeah, that’s absolutely correct, Autumn. Good morning to you. A good Wednesday morning, everyone. Basically, this case has gotten attention both locally, of course, and now nationally. And now, as you said, those federal charges, That could mean that the person, the suspect in this case could actually face the death penalty. Now, there are folks who are still concerned about their safety on the Charlotte transit system. The feds are also weighing in on that horrific crime. Now, 34 year old Carlos Brown, who’s already facing a first degree murder charge in state court. Now, federal prosecutors have stepped up with an additional case. Brown accused of using a knife to kill 23 year old Arena Zaruska at the South End Light Rail station last month. That stabbing, of course, sending shockwaves through Charlotte, raising new concerns about safety for its riders who depend on the blue line every day. City leaders have called for stronger security measures while CMPD has increased patrols around transit stops. Now, federal investigators say Brown was not legally allowed to have the weapon that he used in the attack, which led to the federal weapons charge. As U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson emotionally explained.

[Jay]

This is obviously.

[News Audio]

A horrible, horrible situation.

[News Audio]

But this is why federal statutes exist. They exist to take care of situations like this because no one should sit in fear when they sit on the light rail.

[News Audio]

Yeah, and of course, the investigations, both locally and federally, are continuing. Of course, if Brown is convicted, he could spend the rest of his life behind bars locally. Those federal charges could also mean that he could be put to death.

[MCG]

All right, so they have his charges. And I do think that 14 times, yeah, I think this could have been prevented. And a beautiful young lady could have still been alive trying to avoid the war that’s going on in your own country. But…

[Jay]

This is something that I think we all see happening just way too often in our country. The idea that empathy has to be expressed at the level of law and policy, but it’s become perverted, inverted, twisted, and toxic to where People who should not be shown that kind of mercy because of their recurring offenses, they are given the benefit of the doubt. They are given this mercy at the expense of law-abiding citizens. because we are afraid to appear racist or we are afraid to appear, fill in the blank with whatever pejorative or name calling that the left will throw at people if you actually hold their feet to the fire when it comes to holding them accountable for crime. And so there is this fear of man that’s taking place, but they’re not fearing the one whom they should fear, which is the Lord. The purpose of government the Bible is clear, is to wield the sword against those that are lawless, the ones that are wreaking havoc on society. They are the ones to administer justice to evildoers, and they should do so so that evildoers will fear. The Bible says that evildoers aren’t afraid of the consequences of their sin, of their crime, if punishment for that sin takes forever to execute. And if you arrest someone for their evil and then re-release them over and over and over again, you are helping them in a very sick sort of way, helping them to develop a fearlessness, what do you call it, a barefacedness when it comes to their crime. They don’t care because they know that the system will let them go. And there is no room for sympathy or empathy with that person.

[MCG]

So do you think that this was racially motivated then? If he was, let’s say, a white 34-year-old man, would they have thrown the book at him?

[Jay]

It depends on who you ask. If you ask Van Jones of CNN, he’ll say, well, no, it wasn’t racially motivated. How could you possibly know that? which he actually called Charlie Kirk a racist for. When Charlie Kirk actually put that out there, what Van Jones didn’t realize was that the video, apparently there’s a video, the full-length video of him having committed the crime and then saying something afterward that indicated that race was a factor in this. When that video was put out, either Van Jones didn’t do his job and actually tell the truth, or he obfuscated and hid the truth, that this was a racially motivated attack. By DeCarlos Brown’s own words, from what I understand, he said, I got that white girl, or I got that white girl, I think is what he said. If that doesn’t indicate that race had something to do with it, I’m not sure what does.

[MCG]

All right, I have that clip that I’ll play a little bit later. of the exchange between Van Jones and also Charlie Kirk response. But my honest answer is that I don’t know if he was racially motivated, and I don’t even think it matters. Unfortunately, in this country, everything come down to race, race, race. I don’t think it matters, and I don’t think necessarily we know. If we’re going to go by the fact that based upon the evidence from his family and based upon his repeated offense against the law, that he has mental issues, that kind of lean more to the fact why he did it to me more than so that he saw a white girl sitting in front of him and he figured, hey, I’m going to stab her. Because if what he said was true that he feel like she was reading his mind or whatever the case may be, that points to an unhealthy, unstable person rather than a person by race. However, the question also begs, who cares if it’s race or not? 23-year-old young lady with a bright future ahead of her is dead why is race important here and we know allegedly she’s dead because of what a 34-year-old young Carlos Brown Jr. did you know and not only that he should not be on the streets you mentioned he said I got that white girl that could be a descriptive manner rather than a racist manner. Of course, you’re probably never going to find out. You know, maybe he said it, I got that white girl, and he meant it as derogatory, or he could have been just simply describing the person he just attacked.

[Jay]

Oh, I see what you’re saying. So we don’t know if he actually did it simply because she was white. What we do know is that when he said that, it could have meant…

[MCG]

It could have been derogatory or it could be simply a description of the person that he got.

[Jay]

Gotcha.

[MCG]

Because honestly, in this country, he probably would not have said white if he wanted to be derogatory. He would probably say something like, maybe I got that cracker. That would be equivalent somewhat to the N word, Because no, he would be describing and saying, hey, instead of referring to someone as white or Caucasian, he’s calling them a cracker.

[Jay]

This is where I disagree with you, because typically, when a black person uses the word white in that way, everything derogatory is included as well. Not always, but oftentimes. Because the people on the left have done such a great job making race such a toxic issue in our country, in the black community, when you bring up the word white, I think there’s already so much baggage with that word, so much negative baggage with that word, that it probably wouldn’t make a difference if he called her white or if he called her, you know, the cracker or whatever. Let me liken that to, let’s flip it, let’s say it was a white person attacking a black person. They don’t have to say the N-word in order for there to be, like, a racial element. They could just say that black man or that black boy or whatever they would say, and it would have that same gravitas. It would have that same effect of having a racial element included in that crime.

[MCG]

You might be right.

[Jay]

Culturally I’m speaking. I’m not saying, like, for normal, normal, non-radicalized people like us, I’d say, but generally, particularly in their camp, the word white is just as loaded as, the word that we used before, so.

[MCG]

Right, and I’m not quite sure who’s can’t be talking about, but.

[Jay]

The left.

[MCG]

My point remains is that we don’t necessarily know if it was just a descriptive term of the person he attacked or if he meant it derogatory. Of course, I can see why folks will take it as meaning derogatory, because if you just attack someone and basically murder them, obviously you hate them, quote unquote. Most likely, but it depends on the motive of the attack. And that’s where I’m getting at is that is the motive, what he said, that he felt like she was reading his mind. If we’re going to go by that motive, then we’re looking at a mentally unhealthy, unstable young man who think that an innocent white girl is reading his mind and therefore he going to attack her. And so when he said, I got that white girl, he could simply mean the person there that’s sitting there is a white young lady. and of course she’s in the early 20s she could have passed for a teenager so maybe he was thinking hey there’s a white girl but I can see why people would say it’s derogative but I think overall it doesn’t matter whether again I hate it when everything is race race race a grown man attack a young lady and kill her that’s what should be important here and life has been lost that’s what we should be important here it shouldn’t be what a racing involved but you have a point as well because When George Floyd died, there were absolutely no evidence that Derek Chauvin attacked George Floyd because he was black.

[Jay]

The action was more than enough for it to be racially charged.

[MCG]

There’s actually no evidence.

[Jay]

Right.

[MCG]

He didn’t see him on the street and decide he’s going to go and harass him. He didn’t decide, let me walk around my jurisdiction. I find a black man. He was called to the area. George Floyd was resisting and all the stuff that go along with that. And quite honestly, as I’ve said many times before, I don’t think Derek Chauvin is responsible for George Floyd death. But I won’t get into that because there are many episodes I spoke about that. But my point is that there were no evidence of racism when it come to Derek Chauvin. It was implied because George Floyd is black and Derek Chauvin is white. So here, I do see a double standard now, because now we have a black man attacking a Caucasian lady.

[Jay]

But it’s not racially motivated.

[MCG]

It’s not racially motivated because of the direction it is. I saw the PBD podcast, Patrick David, actually generated an AI image of the scene that when the Carlos Brown Jr. was towering over Iryna with the knife in his hand that they can barely see because it was so small, they had AI flip the race of Iryna to black and flip the race of They call us to be white, and the people sitting in the other seats, they were all black as well. They flipped those to white, and they put that image on the screen. And when I saw that image, I saw Charlotte Burden. because we don’t have to guess or assume what would have happened if it was the other way around, because we saw it on a George Floyd. We saw police precincts being burned. We saw federal courthouses being burned. We saw police running for their lives and buildings being burned and major news outlets calling it peaceful protests. So personally, I don’t think that Iryna was racially profiled, just like I don’t think George Ford was racially profiled. But quite honestly, it doesn’t matter. And if anyone wants to say, hey, I believe it was racially profiled, I’ll give them a listening ear because the same was true that I didn’t see any evidence for George Ford being racially profiled. And no one has pointed to any evidence to show me that Derek Chauvin is racist, except for the fact that he was a police officer. And he arrested a black man who was resisted, eventually died, maybe, most likely, in my opinion, from having a bad heart and enough fentanyl and meth in his system that will take down a cow. But anyways, you mentioned Van Jones and Charlie Kirk. Here’s the exchange between them.

[News Audio]

A war of words has erupted between Charlie Kirk and CNN’s esteemed intellectual, Van Jones, over the Charlotte stabbing. Let’s get into it.

[News Audio]

The narrative that they have pushed forward in the last 10 years is that there is a relentless assault on… against black people be on behalf of white people. And the data does not show that. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. White individuals are actually more likely to be attacked, especially even per capita, by black individuals in this country. People like Charlie Kirk

[News Audio]

fan, they’ve been looking for opportunities to make this some sort of, like, reciprocal George Floyd situation. And that’s the part that I think he’s almost giving away the game, and it’s sad to see a lot of people going along with it.

[News Audio]

We don’t know why that man did what he did. And for Charlie Kirk to say, we know he did it because she’s white, when there’s no evidence of that, it’s just pure race mongering, hate mongering, it’s wrong.

[News Audio]

All right, time out. I swear, it’s amazing how uninformed these people that do these shows are. But let’s clue Van into the obvious here before we continue.

[News Audio]

And then he says that if something like that had happened the other way, there would be sweeping changes imposed on society. Where is the George Floyd Policing Act? It didn’t pass. Even when you had a white police officer murder a black man on live television, the whole world saw.

[News Audio]

According to the courts, yes, a murder. But according to our two eyes and functioning brain, a fentanyl overdose by a lowlife criminal. But go on.

[News Audio]

It’s about the fact that we don’t know how to deal with people who were hurting in the way this man was hurting. Hurt people hurt people.

[News Audio]

Yes, he was just a hurt person. So you see, we should have some empathy for him, okay? We don’t know what he was going through. That could have been you or I having a bad day and deciding to stab a woman in the neck over it. Charlie Kirk, your response.

[News Audio]

Race hustler, Marxist, Van Jones, when a white person is murdered, we don’t burn down the country. But when George Floyd overdosed on drugs, it’s Floydapalooza. Van Jones, he puts race in almost every situation where it doesn’t exist. For example, with the death of George Floyd, Van Jones repeatedly said that it was a racist attack. You know who didn’t say that? Keith Ellison, who is the attorney general of Minnesota at the time, said that race did not play any role in the actions that happened with George Floyd’s death. All of a sudden, When we make the left live up to their own standard of rules, there is complete silence by the entire American media. And then Van Jones goes on television and calls me a race hustler for even calling out the facts and the specifics around this case. Van Jones, he wants to keep on trying to find racial motors that don’t exist, and he ignores them when they’re in broad daylight in front of him on recorded video and a horrendous attack such as this. The media doesn’t care about this, and we should start asking why.

[MCG]

Yeah, so there you have it. The commentator gave his point. Then you hear Charlie Kirk, you also heard Von Jones. I must say, I agree somewhat with Von Jones that we don’t know why. And I also agree with Charlie Kirk that that has been the playbook of the left, sadly. And I hate to shouldn’t be political, but it’s also, that’s true. And I will give Von Jones this if he will give me the fact that we don’t know why Derek Chauvin quote unquote, did what he did. Again, I already said, I don’t think Derek Chauvin is a guilty party here. But if he’s willing to say that George wasn’t killed because of his race, I will give him that Iryna wasn’t killed because of her race. A lot of time we want to bring race into things that race doesn’t necessarily belong. This was a mentally ill person who attacked an innocent person on the train. Race doesn’t come in here in any which way. So if I ever choose a side here, I will choose Charlie Kirk. But I I will also agree. I don’t necessarily think that race played a part here. And again, as I mentioned earlier, as the audio that we just played mentioned, you hear that he said, I got that white girl. When I first heard that, I thought he was someone else was saying that. I thought he was saying, the person was saying he got that white girl. But that doesn’t even matter. As I say, it could have been just a descriptive term.

[Jay]

So who do you think is to blame for the death of Iryna, because now we’re talking about, you mentioned how race shouldn’t matter, right? But in this country, race is such a birth defect in our nation, and it’s such a tender spot that you can’t help but talk about it with almost everything, simply because we have there’s the history there, but there’s also a media that insists on stoking that fire, that insists on poking the bear and instigating… and bringing up the issue of race because they know that the topic is so sensitive that you only need to bring it up and people will jump and ask how high and they will not ask any questions. Everyone is up in arms instantly, ready to defend, quote, their side, ready to go to battle for their values and their truth without looking at the objective facts. So when it comes to who’s to blame for this, I think this is a mud fight everywhere. Everyone is dirty in this thing here, I think. The media, for number one, ignoring it because of the race issue. We can objectively say that the only reason that mainstream media didn’t pick this up and run with it is because it was a black person inflicting hate or crime on a white person. And they, of course, are captured by their ideology and that in order to not portray a black person in a particular light, they’re willing to overextend empathy and grace and all these sorts of things, extending it to people, like I said at the beginning, who don’t deserve it, willing to bend the truth, obfuscate, hide it a little bit in order to not talk about it. On the other hand, on the other hand, one could make the argument that crimes like this happen on public transportation systems day in and day out in our country, and none of them ever make the news, particularly if it’s white on white or black on black. The only time it becomes newsworthy is if it’s crossing racial lines. And that’s typically when the media will pay attention to it. And so one would ask, hey, isn’t that a reason? to fight back and bring this up as well, or to spin this in this particular way as well, because they’re looking at the history of how, say, for example, black-on-black crime has been ignored by the mainstream media. So I suppose people on the left will say, well, hey, you’ve been ignoring crime in our country or in our cities for decades, forever. It’s always been like this. Oh, but now it’s a white girl that got killed. Oh, now you want to say something. So you see how that would fuel their perspective on why race and race has something to do with this, or it’s to blame.

[MCG]

We want to avoid making the mistake of thinking that politicians cares. They don’t care. This wasn’t, they didn’t hide this because of race. That would be assuming they care. They hide this because of politics, because they’re looking at the fact is, what would be best for me in my reelection? That’s basically was it for, I strongly believe, for the mayor of Charlotte. I don’t think the mayor of Charlotte was saying, oh, well, it was a black guy who attacked a white person. And let me keep this from the news so people don’t think ill of black people or think that black people are aggressive or whatever the case may be. I think what was going through this person’s mind was if this get out and everything, what would be my prospect for reelection? If I let this out, would people think that I’m racist and therefore hurt my ability for re-election. That is what more that motivated this. Not because you want to protect this young black guy. I think it was more because the mayor wanted to protect the chance of re-election or the chance of, if they can’t be re-elected, the chance for someone in their own party getting re-elected. This was all politics.

[Jay]

Let me ask a question.

[MCG]

On the part of the mayor, not they were trying to protect race.

[Jay]

Was it the case? I don’t know the answer to this question. Was DeCarlos Brown Jr. arrested as a result of the media spotlight?

[MCG]

No.

[Jay]

Or he was arrested right away?

[MCG]

He was arrested pretty much within the hour because he got off the train at the next stop while people were trying to save Irene’s life. However, I think they quickly appraised him, I would say in 20 minutes or so. I don’t remember exactly what that was.

[Jay]

So basically the state was doing its job then when it came to…

[MCG]

The police was doing their job. The police arrested him and Of course, he’s in jail.

[Jay]

Had they already chosen not to prosecute?

[MCG]

I mean, no, The issue was that it is alleged that the reason why this happened on August 22nd, and it took a week and a half or so before the mainstream media start picking up, is because the mayor kind of…

[Jay]

Oh, she squashed it, or they squashed it.

[MCG]

A weight of her power on it, and it was underreported.

[Jay]

I see.

[MCG]

But he was already arrested and all that stuff. The fact that he was out on bail wasn’t because of what he did with Irene. It was because of another charge or felony he’s been charged with while he was out on bail. But the police and the authorities did what they have to do, arrested him. He’s in jail without bail and everything like that. It’s just that they kind of, hey, let’s keep this news down kind of thing. which is almost impossible with social media and all that stuff. So I’m surprised that they got to keep it silent for a week, a week and a half or so.

[Jay]

They’re playing politics then because they knew that this was just fuel for right-wing.

[MCG]

That’s what I was saying. I don’t think it was definitely race when it comes to the political party. It was more what is best for me for my re-election. But it’s a who’s to blame. Ultimately, The Carlos Brown Jr. is to be blamed for his own actions.

[Jay]

Of course.

[MCG]

You know, so you can put the blame all around and stuff like that, but ultimately he’s blamed for his own action. But I must say there are also many other people who carries a lot of blame as well. I think the politician, as I mentioned, politicians for the weak laws and repeat criminals. I honestly think that also, as I mentioned, the mayor of Charlotte allegedly trying to cover up the killing because of the narrative did not fit their worldview, as you said. You know, again, if he was white and black crime rather than a black and white crime. This would have been, know, major news. I think the judicial system also is to be blamed because they’re the one who have repeatedly let this guy out of their control or out of their, I don’t want to say possession, but whatever word they want to say there, out of their custody over and over and over after 14 times. And they do nothing. But the thing is, again, we can blame the judicial system, but the judicial system in the US is not built for someone like the Carlos Brown Jr. The only recourse for the judicial system here is to keep him locked up or to keep him institutionalized because of his mental health issues. DeCarlos Brown Jr. has nothing to lose. He’s 34. He has, as far as I know, he has no job. He has been in and out of jail since he was obviously in his early 20s, maybe even from teenage years or from at least…

[Jay]

Was his first, he was 16?

[MCG]

Half of his life. 16 and 16 is what?

[Jay]

32, yeah.

[MCG]

So I mean more than half of his life. So the judicial system has nothing to offer to these guys. The judicial system for someone like me, where I have a family, I have a job, I have a home. I want my freedom. I value my freedom. I want to be able to do what I want to do. I don’t want to be caught up in the judicial system. So the judicial system either give punishment to someone like me. It will indeed be punishment, indeed be something that I want to, hey, let me change my life around. Someone like DeCarlos Brown Jr., what are they going to go back to? He has no family. He has no responsibilities. And this has been his life for the last, what, is it 18 years? Well, so what do you expect? But also, institution, the mental health issues also to be blamed because we don’t have proper help for people like him again with his mental state. The judicial system failed to keep him in custody. The mental health institution, the doctor, whatever, again, that go back to the government, they also fail him in terms of proper help with his mental health and in cashless bail. However, as I said before, if this was Scott Doe versus Aiposia Smith, we would have heard about it a long time, and it would not have mattered about all these things I’ve mentioned. It would have falls queerly at the feet of Scott Doe, who is white, and Aiposia Brown, who is black, being a victim. So all these things we’re saying, oh, it was the politician to be blamed and the judicial system can be blamed and all these things, would not matter. As I said earlier, Charlotte will be burning if it was Iportia Smith that was the victim here.

[Jay]

I’ve never heard the name Iportia Smith.

[MCG]

I made it up.

[Jay]

I was going to say I had to actually find the list of his rap sheet from a Daily Mail article. Not even in the country, I was able to find what he was arrested for. So this is according to the Daily Mail. It says here that he was Initially, his first offense was in 2007 when he was 16 years old. And between 2007 to 2014, he was arrested six or seven times. I’m sorry, let me see if I could find it here. Six or seven times. And the charges against him were things like robbery, larceny, shouting threats at people and making threats at people and things like that. arrested six or seven times for that. And I imagine each time he was arrested, let go, arrested, let go, arrested, let go, arrested, let go, until finally in 2014, he was jailed for the five years that we mentioned, 2014, 2015, somewhere in there. So someone like that, maybe I’m… calloused a little bit, and I hope that’s not what’s happening. But I’m beginning to not care whether or not these people have mental health issues. I really don’t care. They commit crimes. They need to be put away. I think that one of the things mental health professionals and the mental health profession completely ignores is the person’s own participation in the devolution of their mental state. We know that repeated and habitual participation of sin will warp and twist your mind. Yes, some people say that there is a biological aspect to it. Sure, we are fallen. I won’t begrudge that. But I think that we ignore that when someone continually, habitually gives themselves over to sin, gives themselves over to lawlessness. And look at the rap sheet that he had. He had an active part to play with his own mental illness. And we take these people, we lock them up into sin university, sin seminary called prison, where you see the absolute worst of the worst, and you get an Ivy League education on sin, and then you release them to the public as though this person can function well in society.

[MCG]

Well, firstly, I don’t know enough about mental health. to come to the conclusion you just came to. I’m not saying you’re wrong.

[Jay]

I do think I might be stretching a little bit, but that’s something we should look at. Go ahead.

[MCG]

But what it sounds like you’re advocating for is criminal justice reform. And to certain group of the population, when they hear criminal justice reform, I think they might mean something different than what you just said. I think, of course, whether mental health or not, you’re responsible for your actions.

[Jay]

Absolutely.

[MCG]

We can’t just simply say, hey, we’re going to let him off from this action because there was some mental health. From looking at the video, from… believe in the history that you see online, it’s clear that there’s definitely some sort of mental health.

[Jay]

Sure.

[MCG]

Most people don’t attack their family members, like he attacked his sister, and most mothers are not going to beg the system to do something with their son if there’s definitely something going on. So I’m not even questioning whether or not he has mental health issues. I think he has mental health issues. Going back to who to blame and whether or not it’s racially motivated, as I said before, we don’t have to guess What would happen if it was the other way around? Because we have seen it. If it was the other way around, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and the biggest and best of them all, Benjamin Crump, would have been linking elbows and walking and marching through the street of Charlotte, singing We Shall Overcome. We know that would have happened. And if this was a white man who had mental health issues, no one would have cared. And as a matter of fact, they would have been doubting his mental health because they would have been certain it was because of hypotia race and not because of Scott Doe mental health issues.

[Jay]

I’m sorry, I have to correct you because the new generation of race baiters, we can’t use Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton anymore. Now it’s Benjamin Crump. and AOC, and all these different people. We have a fresh new crop of the race baiters that would have this country in flames if it were the other way around, as you mentioned. But I also want to say that I don’t want to come off as sounding like mental health is not a real thing, or mental illness is not a real thing. I believe it is. And I do believe that not every case is one like DeCarlos Brown Jr., where for half of his life he had given himself over to a sinful lifestyle that I think would have an effect on how warped and twisted your psyche and your mental state would become. Five years in prison, I would imagine that there was repeated trauma that he experienced when he was behind bars for those five years. I have no doubt in my mind that something snapped, something broke, something twisted. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back in his mind for someone who had already given himself over to lawlessness that just kind of pushed him over the edge, and now you’ve got just a full-blown mental illness situation. going on there. I don’t mean to sound callous. I realize that these things are there. What I’m saying is all too often it sounds like, I don’t know if this is coming from the left or the media or the politicians. I don’t know. It sounds like mental health is a sort of excuse or maybe a justification or an explanation. It’s supposed to make things better, ameliorate what happened. And I’m at the point where I don’t care if they were diagnosed with any kind of mental illness. I really don’t care. I think that our criminal justice system needs to bring the hammer down and deal with these people accordingly.

[MCG]

Well, majority of people with mental health are more of a danger to themselves than others. Majority of them wouldn’t harm a fly.

[Jay]

And if they’re that type of people, they have no reason to fear the justice armor of the government. But if you’re someone like DeCarlos Brown that has shown repeatedly that he has no qualms endangering the people around him, then the government needs to do their job and put them away and execute judgment, if that means the death penalty, which he’s apparently facing now, from what I lasted.

[MCG]

Right, but I think it’s also important to somewhat figure out why. did he do this? Is it because of his mental health? Is it because of race? Is it because, I don’t think necessarily know if that’s clear, except for the fact I’m leading mental health because he told his sister, hey.

[Jay]

What difference does he…

[MCG]

I thought she was reading my mind. It doesn’t make a difference in terms of mispunishment and outcome of it, or even for the judicial system. I’m just simply saying, if we can get to the root of some of these things. then maybe we can prevent some of them in the future.

[Jay]

Well, this is what I’m saying. I’m going to draw a parallel here between DeCarlos Brown Jr. and Charlie Kirk’s assassin, Tyler Robinson is his name, Tyler Robinson, whatever his name is. This young man was, from all that we understand and for all that we know, we don’t know for sure, but seemed to have grown up in a household where the truth is… taught, I guess, available? I’m not sure. But his person…

[MCG]

I wouldn’t phrase it that way, but go ahead.

[Jay]

Well, I probably wouldn’t phrase it that way either, except that my brain is frightened and I can’t think straight. But he has repeatedly, now that it’s coming to light, he has repeatedly made decisions that have taken him down a path of sin that would ultimately warp his mind too. And so we’re talking about who did it left or right, this or that or the other. And what we’re failing to realize is that a majority of the people who perpetrate these crimes, if not all of them, they all have a history of participating in unrepentant, like just habitual unrepentant sin. Whether it’s the overindulgence in *********** or the overindulgence in things in the media, things that come into the eye gate, into the ear gate, the things that they consume, that bit by bit, little bit by little bit, twist them into monsters that they would only need a slight push in a particular direction in order for them to do. the evil that they’ve already set in their hearts to do, that they’ve already given themselves over to. And so, because our society has largely turned away from God, although I wonder if we’re beginning to see turning the corner on that a little bit, I would like to hope so. But since our society doesn’t fear God, we would just write it off as mental illness, when in reality, these are people given over to sin. And so… This is why I don’t see the reason for the state going easy on anyone just because of their mental illness or explaining away their mental illness. They’re given over to sin, and there’s the why, and let’s treat them accordingly. And I’m probably wrong.

[MCG]

I’m just saying, yeah, that’s one explanation on the spiritual level. We’re not just spiritual, we also physical. We also have a soul and stuff like that, or you want to say emotional as well. So true, They may be have been given over to sin. I guess the argument can be made that all of us are given over to sin in some level, I guess.

[Jay]

Right, right.

[MCG]

That doesn’t necessarily conflict with me saying, hey, let’s get down to the bottom of this. What was the triggering issue? What was the, whatever the case may be? That’s not to say that I want them to be easy on the punishment. A young lady is dead because of his action. He deserves at minimum, in my opinion, life in prison. that’s the minimum that he can get without parole. If the government feel like this should be taken to the next level where that they will execute judgment to the level of taking his life, I wouldn’t necessarily oppose to that, but I’m just simply saying, hey, let’s get to the root of the matter. Maybe we can understand. What was the triggering effect?

[Jay]

I think we’re seeing the same thing. I’m saying the root of the matter is spiritual.

[MCG]

And I’m not doubting that there’s a spiritual root, but I’m also saying there’s also maybe a mental root, and there’s also maybe a physical root. What push him over the top. That’s all I’m saying.

[Jay]

I see.

[MCG]

Anyways, you’re listening to the Removing Barriers podcast. We’re talking about Iryna Zarutska, a soul for which Christ died. We’ll be right back.

[Jay]

Are you looking for a consistent and reliable place to get all your Christian materials? Try ChristianBook.com. Started from humble beginnings in 1978, ChristianBook.com now offers a wide range of books, CDs, DVDs, homeschooling, and church supplies, plus more. So whether you are a parent, a homeschooler, a pastor, or a layperson, ChristianBook.com can be a one-stop shop for all your needs. Click the link in the description section below and check out the vast array of Christian materials ChristianBook.com has to offer.

[MCG]

All right, so there have been also a lot of noise about the fact that the Charlotte light rail and quite honestly, most metro system in major cities around the country do not allow or have posted signs prohibiting knives, guns, pepper sprays. Any form of weapon, they are prohibited from mass transit, whether it’s a buff or train. Do you think that that prohibition is doing any good, or should weapons be prohibited from these places?

[Jay]

The reason I don’t think that this is a good thing is because I don’t believe in gun-free zones. I think that you should be able to defend yourself with the best weapon possible wherever you are, and if the rail systems and the public transit systems in our country are any indication. You absolutely need to be armed. Now, in Iryna’s situation, I don’t know if there’s anything that she could have done because it was a surprise attack from behind, but maybe someone else might have been able to do something. I don’t know. I don’t think that the weapons should be prohibited because DeCarlos Brown has shown that criminals are gonna criminal. They’re going to have their weapons.

[MCG]

Yeah, well, he wasn’t prohibited apparently to have a pocket knife.

[Jay]

A pocket knife.

[MCG]

I’m kind of skeptical about that. As they’re saying, because he’s a convicted criminal, he can’t have a pocket knife. Does that mean he can’t have a knife in his kitchen? Or is it that he can’t have it on the train?

[Jay]

Well, now I don’t use public transit. I don’t know. But the last time I used public systems, there aren’t metal detectors or anything. So even if you, how do they even enforce that? What’s that?

[MCG]

For most parts, it’s an honor system. Even when you use, I haven’t used public transportation in a while, but for.

[Jay]

We’re using an honor system with criminals.

[MCG]

What I’m saying, when you go on these buses and train them, they’ve posted signs that say what’s prohibited on the bus or on the train or whatever the case may be, but no one’s searching your bags. You’re not walking through a metal detective, at least for the ones that I’ve used. I don’t know if that’s the case for all of them. I even remember the last time I took Amtrak, which is a long time ago. I don’t remember they checking my luggage or checking me for weapons.

[Jay]

Right.

[MCG]

So I think on these kind of translate that they probably don’t check.

[Jay]

So we’re on an honor system in a low trust society with criminals that don’t believe…

[MCG]

I’m just simply saying they don’t check.

[Jay]

Right. I’m saying I’ve never been on a system where they checked me either. And so the prohibition of weapons to me seems completely futile and senseless because if the criminals are going to have weapons, how are we to defend ourselves? People look at the other passengers on that train and they say, why didn’t you help her? Why didn’t you… So if the criminal has a knife and you are bare-handed, you have no weapon in your hand. And clearly no one on that train had any close quarter, close combat skills in order to… engage with someone who had a knife, and even if they did, why would you go into a knife fight empty-handed? We’re all put in a position where we can’t do anything. He just committed this horrendous crime, and no one can do anything about it because no one is armed, no one has the capability to confront someone that has a deadly weapon because they’ve been stripped of their ability to defend themselves too. So this is why I’m not for the prohibition of weapons on the train, because if the bad guys are gonna have weapons, we should have one too. Now, I never saw the whole video. And I didn’t want to see it. And I’m glad it was a situation where I didn’t have to, as opposed to, say, Charlie Kirk’s assassination, where everyone was just bombarded with the footage on that, even if they didn’t want to be. But it seemed like in the small clip that I saw, it was probably 12 seconds long, maybe even less than that, where no one was able to even see the knife in his hand. And it looked like he just kind of sucker punched her from the side and then got up and walked off. And everyone was just kind of, you know, everyone was on their phones, of course, or just staring out of the window. And so after such a sudden jolt of movement, they all kind of jumped up and they didn’t seem to know what happened there. And now I didn’t see the whole video. Maybe there’s a video that can show something a little bit more clearly. But from the video that I saw, it wasn’t obvious that she was mortally wounded. And so maybe that’s why they didn’t interact. That’s why they didn’t engage. Or maybe they saw the weapon and didn’t want to engage because they didn’t have weapons. And so What do you do in a situation like that?

[MCG]

Yeah, I think the flak that the other passengers got was a little bit unwarranted because when passengers did realize that she was hurt, they did went to her aid and tried to help.

[Jay]

Right.

[MCG]

When I watched the video the first time, they freeze it just as he was about to attack and pick it up right after. First thing I went, I was like, What, really? What happened? Because even after they went back to immediately after it, You didn’t see any blood?

[Jay]

Right.

[MCG]

You didn’t really see her, you know, responded. It almost appeared that she was, as you said, punched. And the knife was so small, I don’t think folks necessarily see the knife in his hand. And it happened so fast. So when I did find a video that wasn’t necessarily censored and saw the full attack, even then, after he finished attacking her, it took about 10 to 15 seconds before she collapsed. And I guess that’s when she lost blood pressure, whatever the case may be. But even then, he didn’t even see any blood until afterwards, then he started seeing some blood. And of course, he had a bunch of blood on his hand as the camera was picking up, walking through the train saying, I got that white girl.

[Jay]

Was that her blood or did he end up cutting himself with his knife?

[MCG]

He cut himself as well. He cut himself as well with a knife.

[Jay]

Well, you see, a homeless person walking around bleeding, unfortunately, is a common sight. I’m not saying that as an excuse. I’m saying that you-?

[MCG]

Well, I don’t know if they knew he was- Right.

[Jay]

They wouldn’t have known.

[MCG]

But yeah, but my point is that the person sitting, you know, opposite Iryna and person sitting may have just blinked and didn’t realize what was going on. I don’t necessarily think that they were just being callous because, as some people say, because she’s white.

[Jay]

Well, those are the people trying to…

[MCG]

I think they honestly would have not known what happened.

[Jay]

You and I both read through posts that people put on the neighborhood websites like Patch and Ring and all these sort of things, and people will hear what others know as gun Gunshots, and they would always say something like, Oh, what was that? Was that a car backfiring or was that fireworks? Like, people are confronted with evil on a daily basis to know exactly what they’re seeing. right away. I think perhaps we think that we would know when we’re confronted with it because we watch all of these gory movies and we think that we know what guns sound like, what knife attacks look like, and we think that it would be obvious. But in reality, sometimes when you have knife attacks or gun attacks, it’s not immediately obvious. There’s not always a spurting of blood. It’s not always like that. Sometimes it takes a minute for you to even realize what happened. And I think that’s what happened on that train, is that I could say it for me, looking at the video. Of course, I wasn’t there, but it looked like he just sucker punched her from behind and then walked off. And everyone seemed totally confused by it. I don’t think they realized immediately what happened. So I’m with you. I think that the flak that they got as though they didn’t help her just because she was white, I don’t think that was the case at all.

[MCG]

Yeah, just to go back to what is another good thing to not having weapons on mass transit. I think that if the government is going to disarm you, that they should have responsibility to guarantee your safety and be held liable civilly if something should happen. The problem with these mass transit is that they’re telling you cannot be armed, you cannot have anything on there to protect yourself, but yet they do nothing to inspect what they expect. So if you’re going to say… on mass transit, they can’t have these things. Well, make it like airports where you have to go to metal detectors and body scans to make sure people don’t have things in their bags and all that stuff. They would not do that because that will extremely slow down something that they want to be much faster. And if they do that, a lot of more people are going to drive rather than take the trains and the bus. So they’re not going to do that, but yet they’re not even going to put police officers on the cars, on the train, or on the bus.

[Jay]

They don’t have the manpower for that.

[MCG]

Well, that may be true. Well, then let the people be responsible for their own safety. I know in New York, now they’re putting police on the train sometimes, but even that is still not enough. So I think that if they’re going to do that, that police officer should be present on every train and in every car on the metro system, whether it’s New York or Charlotte. Because if you’re going to say, I’m going to disarm the people, you’re not going to allow the people to protect themselves, then you’ve guaranteed that protection by putting armed officers on these things, but it’s not going to happen. Even if it is not armed officers, armed security officers would work too. But I agree with you. I think a law-abiding folks should be able to carry their weapons wherever it go and stuff like that because people like to call us Brown Jr. are going to ignore the law because that’s what criminals do. Criminals break the law. By definition, they’re criminal because they have broken the law. So let law abiding people protect themselves. But also, and what I’m going to say, I’m not trying to blame Iryna for her debt because as I said, the Carlos Brown Jr. is ultimately responsible, sure. For the death of Iryna. But also, when you go on transit system, at least let me talk about myself. When I do go on transit system, which has been a long time I’ve used transit system, I think it has been probably well over five years since I’ve jumped on her. a train or a bus or something, public transit system outside of the airport, and if they put outside of being at the airport or whatever the case may be. I normally try to stand where I can have my back, that there’s no one behind of me or whatever the case may be. Or at least if I’m sitting, I want to sit at the very back of the train or whatever the case may be, where my back is turned to a wall or whatever the case may be or something, because doing exactly what people do on public transit, get on a lot of the time they have ables in like Irene did their attention is totally focused on the device that they have in their hand there’s no situational awareness there’s nothing going on with them so Irene didn’t see this coming again I’m not blaming her because he was being ever even if she wasn’t on her phone, she probably would not have seen this coming. And even if she saw it happening so quick, she probably would not able to do anything. But also, if the other folks wasn’t buried in their phone and buried in whatever going on there, maybe they would have seen something coming as well. But maybe not. Again, it happened very quickly. Once he got up and started swinging, it happened really quickly. However, I’m just saying for situational awareness and all these things, you probably want to consider and say, hey, how do I want to sit on these things? The same is true when you go into a restaurant or whatever the case may be. Do you want to sit with your back turned to the door, turned to the entrance or what the case might be? I’m always looking for exits. I’m always thinking about escape. I always want to make sure that the way my back is turned is advantageous for me and not for the other person. It could be just with me and I could be paranoid, but I think situation awareness is very important, even though I don’t think that she would have been able to do much.

[Jay]

Just because she had her back to him.

[MCG]

Because she had her back to him. However, Maybe she could have stand, but why would you stand in a train that is almost empty? So she was just doing what everything when normal people do. I don’t want to seem like I’m blaming her. I’m just saying that I would have done things.

[Jay]

For all of us, we need to keep that in mind.

[MCG]

Right. But again, that can come across a little bit because I might be in a position that I don’t need to take public transportation very often. And some people might say that’s a little bit of a privilege or whatever the case may be. But I try to choose my seat tactically and whatever the case may be. And again, Irene is not to a blame. De Carlos Brown is to a blame. But when you go on public transit system, I always simply say, hey.

[Jay]

Keep your head on a swivel.

[MCG]

Yeah, just look around, choose your seat according to. self-protection, self-preservation in mind. And again, you can’t do it all the time because sometimes you’re going to go on a PAC train and what are you going to do?

[Jay]

Yeah. So something else that we need to keep in mind is the world that we live in today is incredibly more dangerous because the psychotropic drugs or just the illicit drugs that, or goodness, I could even say the prescribed drugs that people are on has multiplied Several hundredfold, I would say. I don’t know how much more we’re medicated now than we were, say, 10, 15, 20 years ago. But I would put my neck on the block and say, we’re definitely more medicated than we were any time in the past. And not only are we prescribed medication, there’s also illicit drugs that people take. where they’re not in control of themselves. So you have an increase in mental illness, as they say, you have an increase in drug use, whether illicit or prescribed. And this is going to increase the danger and the threat that we face when it comes to people and what people would do to execute their basest or most sinful impulses. The world is a completely different place, and so many more of us are under the influence in some way or another, whether it’s alcohol or drugs. And we can’t assume anymore that the people that we’re engaging with are in their right mind. Many of them aren’t. And so in addition to the situational awareness that you were mentioning, we need in areas of public transportation, I think in general, we should realize that More likely than not, the people that we interact with are going to be under the influence of something, and particularly with states where there’s a push to legalize certain drugs. I hate to say this because now it may sound like paranoia, but we need to be prepared, and perhaps the people that we interact with are not in their right mind, and we need to be ready to react accordingly. Again, Iryna didn’t have that chance at all. That attack came from nowhere, and she didn’t even see it coming, didn’t even know what happened until afterward. But that’s something that we keep in mind.

[MCG]

Yeah, we have to keep in mind is that when it comes to a situation like this, self-defenders are always going to be behind the eight ball somewhat because their attacker chooses the time and place of the attack. So you’re always going to be behind, you’re going to be reacting rather than acting for most part in terms of if you’re the good guy, you’re not going to attack someone first. You have to perceive an attack and be in fear, reasonable fear of losing life on limb to be justified in attacking.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[MCG]

So again, not blaming Iryna because she didn’t do anything wrong.

[Jay]

Right.

[MCG]

But for those of us who remain, I just want to push a little bit of situational awareness, maybe Put the phone in your pocket sometimes.

[Jay]

Take the earbuds out.

[MCG]

And look around and keep an eye out. Again, this probably wouldn’t have saved her, I don’t know.

[Jay]

Right. Well, we talked earlier in the podcast about how the media has taken this on both sides and run with it. So the media on the right are saying, yo, she was just a perfect innocent little white lady that was attacked by a horrible, evil black man, and this has got to change, while the media on the left will say, oh, this was a white lady that was attacked by a helpless, mentally ill that we just are not understanding and we need to be more compassionate, whatever the left is saying. So the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, although I think the right actually has this, has this correct. But my question is, so Iryna, most likely, and I would say, you know, if I were to put my neck on the block, I would say most definitely didn’t wake up that morning thinking that later on that evening her life would come to an end. I don’t think she saw it coming. Now, I don’t know if she was prepared to meet the Lord. I don’t know if she even knew the Lord. And DeCarlos Brown, one would argue, didn’t wake up that morning and say, you know, I’m going to go kill a white girl today, right? One would hope, okay? I don’t know. One would hope. So you have two souls, one whose life had been terminated and the other whose life is forever changed now, I would hope. I would hope. The question is, these people that we interact with or that we’ve seen in this interaction, what are the spiritual things that we need to take into consideration when we see a soul extinguished? Well, the soul wasn’t extinguished, but the light that person killed right there on camera for everyone to see, and the murderer just walks away.

[MCG]

Well, I think that question can be answered with the question, was Irene, a soul for whom Christ died? Of course, the answer is yes. Irene was was a soul for whom Christ died. The Bible declares in Luke 19, verse 10, for the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. And that word loss, that’s all of us.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[MCG]

All of us were lost at some point, and some of us are still lost. And as you said, we don’t know whether Irene was ever saved or not. We didn’t know her personally. But yes, indeed, she was the soul for whom Christ died. First John 2 and verse 2, and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sin of the whole world. But the Bible also declares in Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 27, and as it appointed unto man once to die, but after this the judgment. So the Bible is saying here that once you die, you’re going to face an infinitely just God. Do we receive judgment? But not only that, the sobering thought here as well is that all of us have an appointment with that. All of us are going to die someday. And the ultimate question is, what have you done with the Lord Jesus Christ? Did you know him as Savior? We don’t know if Irene knew the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. And that might be the saddest part about all of this. Yes, we are saddened because a young lady lost her life. But the saddest part about all this is that we don’t necessarily know if she was saved, if she trusted Christ as a savior. The Bible said in Romans 3, 23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It’s clear to us that the Carlos Brown Jr. has sinned. Yeah. But sadly, Iryna has sinned too. I have sinned. You have sinned as well. Bible said for all, that includes you, have sin and come short of the glory of God. Meaning all of us have, Mr. Mark, all of us have fallen short of God’s standard. God says, do and we don’t. And he said, don’t and we do. And we do. All of us have sinned. The Bible said in Romans chapter five, verse 12, wherefore, by one man sin entereth into the world and death by sin, so death pass apart all men for that all have sinned. Romans 3 10 as it is written there is none righteous no not one and even in Isaiah 64 verse 6 the Bible declares that all all righteousness are our filthy rags not only are we sinners according to God’s word but there are consequences for our sins the Bible says in Romans 6 23 for the rages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ Our Lord the The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. God, my friend, did not leave us hopeless. Amen. The Bible declares in Romans chapter five and verse eight, but God commended his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. In other words, while we were yet filthy, while we were yet ungodly, while we were yet rejecting his son, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus paid a debt that we could have never paid. Jesus satisfied the Father’s requirement. The Bible declares in Romans 53 verse 11, speaking of Jesus, he said, he, God the Father, shall see the travail of his son, and that’s Jesus, and shall be satisfied. So then how shall we escape this judgment? Well, the Bible declares it. in Romans 10 verse 9 to 13 if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thy heart that God has raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation for the scripture said whosoever believeth in him shall not be ashamed for there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek for the same Lord over all is which unto all that call upon him whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved. And once you call upon the name of the Lord, you put your trust in what Jesus Christ had done on the cross for you. The Bible says in Romans 8, verse 1 and 2, There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus had made me free from the law of sin and death. My encouragement to you if you’re listening to this. is that, yes, Iryna came to a sad end, but that’s not the most important thing. The most important thing is all of us will come to that end someday, maybe differently, maybe old age, but all of us have an appointment with our maker. Are we prepared to meet him? Would you trust him today?

[Jay]

Thank you so much for listening to the Removing Barriers podcast. Make sure to rate us everywhere you listen to podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Stitcher. Removing Barriers, a clear view of the cross.

[MCG]

Thank you for listening. To get ahold of us, to support this podcast, or to learn more about removing barriers, go to removingbarriers.net. This has been the Removing Barriers podcast. We attempted to remove barriers so that we all can have a clear view of the cross.