How to Prevent Random Violence

The sort of violence that took the life of a Ukrainian refugee, Iryna Zarutska, on a light-rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina, last month is impossible to make sense of. But that doesn’t mean that murders such as Zarutska’s are unpreventable. Her killing represents a confluence of failures within the structures meant to keep people safe. The country’s criminal-justice and mental-health systems should prevent exactly such incidents. But in recent years, these systems have been weakened, their efficacy deliberately reduced. No society can prevent all murders, but if these systems are restored, the prevalence of similar murders could be greatly diminished.

Such an effort begins with understanding more about Zarutska’s alleged killer, Decarlos Brown, and the checks that should have preve