RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Republican lawmakers are one step closer to passing a bill they say is tougher on crime and also protects innocent North Carolinians.

The bill, Iryna’s Law, is named after Iryna Zarutska, the woman stabbed and killed on a Charlotte train last month.

“When we were drafting this bill, a lot of it was looking at the situation that happened in Charlotte,” Senator Danny Britt said in a committee meeting on Monday.

The man accused of stabbing Zarutska, DeCarlos Brown Jr., had a violent criminal history, but he was recently charged with a nonviolent misdemeanor crime, and released by a magistrate.

Republican lawmakers immediately vowed to draft a bill to keep people like Brown held in jail or treated for mental health concerns.

“This creates, or basically does away wit

See Full Page