{"id":3939,"date":"2025-11-05T15:00:31","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T19:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/?p=3939"},"modified":"2025-11-05T15:02:31","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T19:02:31","slug":"orth-carolinas-largest-city-reelects-mayor-after-fallout-over-train-stabbing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/?p=3939","title":{"rendered":"North Carolina\u2019s largest city reelects mayor after fallout over train stabbing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Voters in North Carolina\u2019s largest city reelected their Democratic mayor, keeping her in place even as safety concerns in Charlotte have risen since the August stabbing death of a young Ukrainian woman<\/a> on a commuter train.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vi Lyles won comfortably on Tuesday over Republican and Libertarian challengers in a city that hasn\u2019t elected a GOP mayor since 2007.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am just so grateful for the voters \u2014 for the people that helped me be here tonight \u2014 to be able to say that I have the opportunity to serve the city once more,\u201d Lyles told WBTV on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Aug. 22 killing of 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska on a light-rail car sparked outrage<\/a> from President Donald Trump and other Republicans about violent crime and pretrial release decisions. It also sharpened campaigning in Charlotte<\/a>, where Republican candidate Terrie Donovan, a real estate agent, had made crime her top issue even before the stabbing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Decarlos Brown Jr., the suspect in Zarutska\u2019s stabbing, had previously been arrested more than a dozen times, and he was released earlier this year by a magistrate on a misdemeanor count without any bond. Public anger intensified with the release of security video showing what appeared as a random attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The GOP-controlled state legislature passed a law in late September<\/a> that, in part, tightened pretrial release rules. Lyles, who easily won the Democratic mayoral primary<\/a>, has highlighted additional safety measures for the light rail system, including a greater presence of transit system officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lyles, a former longtime municipal employee, said Tuesday that city officials need to follow the lead of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department on what public safety improvements are needed \u201cinstead of trying just to say, \u2018well, we\u2019ll just throw something out there.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City leaders announced just last week the hiring of recent Raleigh police chief Estella Patterson as Charlotte-Mecklenburg\u2019s next chief. Current Chief Johnny Jennings is retiring at year\u2019s end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown is charged with first-degree murder in state court and was indicted on a federal count<\/a> in connection with Zarutska\u2019s death. Both crimes can be punishable by the death penalty. Brown\u2019s next state court hearing is scheduled for April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats outnumber Republicans by over 2-1 in voter registration in Charlotte, which has well over 900,000 residents. But the number of registered unaffiliated voters is nearly on par with Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mayor and 11 elected officials comprise Charlotte\u2019s city council. With Tuesday\u2019s elections, Democrats will soon hold 10 of the 11 other seats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Voters in North Carolina\u2019s large […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3939"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3942,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3939\/revisions\/3942"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}