As the morning rush trickled into uptown Charlotte on Monday, a group of protestors gathered outside the federal courthouse to denounce what some called an unwelcome intrusion.

Inside, some 400 miles from the halls of Congress, a U.S. House Judiciary subcommittee, led by Republicans, had called a “field hearing” prompted by the killing of Iryna Zarutska aboard a Lynx Blue Line train.

Zarutska’s Aug. 22 murder prompted a federal investigation and fueled Republican accusations that Charlotte’s Democratic leaders are “soft on crime.”

Out among the protestors, Greg Jarrell of the Redress Movement pushed back.

While calling Zarutska’s killing “horrific,” he said Republicans were exploiting her death for political gain.

“These people are not concerned with the truth of our city,” he said of

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