Trump condemns 'lunatic' in Charlotte stabbing: 'If we don't handle evil, we don't have a country'

In an X post shared on the official White House account Monday evening, Trump said he had seen the "horrific video" of the stabbing and questioned why the suspect was out on the streets in the first place.

"I have seen the horrific video of a beautiful, young Ukrainian refugee, who came to America to escape the vicious War in Ukraine, and was innocently riding the Metro in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she was brutally ambushed by a mentally deranged lunatic. The perpetrator was a well known career criminal, who had been previously arrested and released on CASHLESS BAIL in January, a total of 14 TIMES," Trump said in the statement. "What the hell was he doing riding the train, and walking the streets? Criminals like this need to be LOCKED UP."

"We're all people of religion, but there are evil people," Trump said. "And we have to confront that. I just give my love and hope to the family of the young woman who was stabbed this morning or last night in Charlotte by a madman."

The suspect, identified as 34-year-old Decarlos Brown, was arrested shortly after the stabbing and hospitalized before being arrested on a charge of first-degree murder. 

"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."

The surveillance footage, recently released by the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS), shows Zarutska boarding the Lynx Bline line just after 9:45 p.m. on Aug. 22. She is seen wearing a pizzeria uniform while scrolling on her phone. A man in a red hoodie is seen sitting behind her. 

The video shows the suspect walking through the rail car, taking off his sweatshirt, and waiting by the doors as passengers look on. 

"So they're evil people," Trump said. "We have to be able to handle that. If we don't handle that, we don't have a country."

Records obtained by Fox News Digital showed that Brown has a history of arrests going back more than 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.

"This cashless bail started a wave in our country where a killer kills somebody and is out on the street by the afternoon and, in many cases, going out and killing again, cashless bail," Trump said.

Fox News Digital's Bradford Betz, Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, Alex Nitzberg and Emma Bussey contributed to this report.