09/21/2025
RALEIGH — House Speaker Destin Hall (R-Granite Falls) and Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Eden) announced that lawmakers intend to propose criminal justice reforms in the wake of the August murder of Iryna Zarutska that took place on Charlotte’s light rail system.
Hall and Berger made the announcement at a Sept. 11 press conference and were joined by former National Republican Committee Chairman Michael Whatley, the likely Republican nominee for the state’s U.S. Senate vacancy in 2026.
Hall said Zarutska’s murder was the result of “somebody being released from a jail who should not have been released from a jail.”
“The most fundamental obligation and responsibility of any government is keeping its citizens safe,” said Whatley. “We need leaders at every level to acknowledge that there is a crime crisis here in North Carolina and across the country brought about by the left’s soft-on-crime policies, which affect the safety of every community and every family across our great state.”
Berger added, “Iryna Zarutska should still be alive today. But her life was tragically cut short because of the atrocious policies pushed by out-of-touch politicians and court officials that prioritize a perverted vision or version of equity and politicized social justice over real and tangible justice.”
Berger said the quick release of dangerous offenders by the courts undermines the hard work done by law enforcement officers.
“We cannot stand by while our cities are held hostage by soft-on-crime policies,” he said. “We must stop the ongoing violence from overtaking our state and our country.
“Policing doesn’t need to be reimagined. It needs to be respected. It needs to be funded. Our hard-working law enforcement officers are all too often villainized just for doing their jobs, keeping us safe. It’s time for that to end.”
From Gov. Roy Cooper’s 2020 “Racial Equity Task Force“ was also mentioned, which recommended policies like cashless bail.
“When the General Assembly returns on Sept. 22, we’re going to propose a package of commonsense policies to more effectively tackle crime in our state,” Berger said. “We can start by ensuring that Gov. (Josh) Stein and other members of the executive branch cannot establish any future task forces like the one Roy Cooper created that advanced weak-on-crime policies that kept Iryna’s murderer on the streets.”