Newly released police bodycam footage is raising fresh questions about how a violent offender remained on the streets months before he allegedly murdered a young woman on a Charlotte light rail train.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department on Tuesday released footage from a January welfare check involving 30-year-old Decarlos Brown Jr..
Brown is now charged with fatally stabbing 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska in an unprovoked attack on the LYNX Blue Line in August.
The footage shows Brown calling 911 to claim a “man-made material” had been placed inside his body without his “permission or authorization.”
He continues by telling officers that the “material” was “controlling” him, including his bodily functions and what he ate.
An officer asked Brown:
“You think you got somebody inside controlling you?”
Brown insisted the material was implanted against his will.
He demanded officers investigate because, he claimed, medics had no scan capable of detecting what he believed had been done to him.
Brown told police he had “woke up on the ground” and that “somebody did something to my body.”
For nearly 30 minutes, officers questioned him.
They advised him to seek medical care and attempted to de-escalate the situation.
While officers were still present, Brown called 911 a second time.
He was then arrested for misuse of the 911 system.
Brown told officers that doctors had attempted to diagnose him with schizophrenia but insisted “they got it wrong.”
“I’m mentally perfect,” he added.
WATCH:
CMPD confirmed that officers did not initiate involuntary commitment because Brown did not express intent to harm himself or others, despite making delusional claims about being physically controlled.
The footage now stands in stark contrast to the brutal killing police say he carried out months later.
Authorities have described Zarutska’s murder as entirely unprovoked.
State records from the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction show Brown has a lengthy criminal history, including larceny, breaking and entering, and armed robbery.
He began a five-year prison sentence in 2015.
The case is renewing concerns about violent offenders with documented warning signs being released back into communities with tragic consequences for innocent victims like Zarutska.
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