Another violent episode on Charlotte’s public transit has left a man fighting for his life and once again exposed the city’s failure to keep citizens safe. On December 5, a 33-year-old man allegedly stabbed a fellow passenger on the Blue Line, leaving the victim hospitalized in critical but stable condition while police took the suspect into custody.
Authorities identified the accused as Oscar Solarzano, who is reported to have been previously deported and is now facing charges that include attempted first-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon; the Department of Homeland Security has lodged a detainer. This is not a random statistic — it is a clear consequence of lax immigration enforcement and the revolving-door justice policies at the local level.
This attack comes just months after the brutal killing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on the same system, an outrage that prompted calls for reforms and even a so-called Iryna’s Law to protect riders. Charlotte residents deserve to ride the train without fearing for their lives, yet violent offenders keep turning up on public transit with alarming frequency.
The pattern doesn’t stop at light rail. In November, a man with a long arrest record allegedly stabbed a passenger on a city bus after being released from custody weeks earlier, underscoring the dangerous consequences of releasing repeat offenders back into the streets. These are not isolated misfortunes; they are predictable outcomes of a permissive criminal-justice culture that prioritizes ideology over safety.
It’s past time for elected leaders — from the mayor’s office to the county prosecutors — to stop making excuses and start securing neighborhoods. Democrats who run Charlotte love to lecture about equity and compassion while shrugging when law-abiding citizens pay the price for their policies; voters should demand accountability, not platitudes. No amount of hand-wringing explains away the preventable nature of these attacks.
Federal action must follow to backstop cities that refuse to enforce immigration and criminal laws effectively, and local officials must stop obstructing detainers and releasing dangerous people. Republican leaders and concerned citizens are rightly calling for a crackdown and for honest, common-sense measures to restore safety to public spaces.
Hardworking Americans — commuters, families, veterans — deserve to feel safe on their way to work and on their way home. If Charlotte’s leadership won’t protect its own people, those leaders should be replaced by public servants who will put law and order first and stop treating crime as an acceptable cost of progressive policy experiments.
