CHARLOTTE — Nearly two weeks ago, police say a man got onto the Charlotte light rail system and stabbed a woman to death, seemingly at random. His family said he is mentally ill and they had attempted to get him help before the attack.
It’s a story that local advocate Fonda Bryant has heard one too many times.
She told Channel 9’s Hunter Sáenz on Tuesday that there just aren’t enough mental health resources in the Queen City. She says the lack of mental health resources failed not only the suspect in the case, but also the victim and the community at large.
Bryant says she wants to break the stigma surrounding mental health, arguing that the death of Iryna Zarutska was preventable if only we had the proper help available.
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“[I] wear this with pride, I’m a 30-year survivor of suicide, and it’s preventable,” Bryant said on Tuesday.
That passion is why she felt empowered to email Channel 9, seeing the aftermath and blame game after police say Zarutska was randomly stabbed to death by Decarlos Brown.
“He fell through the cracks and there were a lot of different cracks he fell through,” Bryant said.
Brown’s mother told Channel 9 that he was homeless and suffered from schizophrenia. Bryant says she’s appalled by the allegations against Brown, but argues it could have been prevented.
“I’m not excusing bad behavior, but in this case, that man needed help, so to me, this falls on the mental health system,” Bryant told Sáenz.
Brown’s mother told us last week that she tried to get him help on multiple occasions. Bryant says that help is often hard to find.
“We don’t have enough beds, we don’t have enough help, and the new mental health facilities have become the jails and the ers who are not equipped to help us,” Bryant said.
In the Charlotte region, our two biggest healthcare providers have a total of 281 inpatient psych beds available. Many are often filled. As of 2023, there were 894 psych beds among the three North Carolina state psychiatric hospitals. But due to staffing issues at the time, only about 600 were being used.
It’s one of many issues that Bryant says needs to be fixed. She says the tragedy on the light rail should be a wake-up call.
“We need to do something. If you want to do all this yapping, action needs to come behind it so these things will not happen again. Because unfortunately, they could,” Bryant said.
Bryant says it is important to break the stigma around mental health disorders and violence. Several studies show that fewer than 5% of people with a mental health condition are deemed violent.
Brown is currently in custody, charged with first-degree murder in Zarutska’s death.
(VIDEO: Man accused of killing Ukrainian refugee on light rail to remain in jail)
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