State Auditor Dave Boliek announced this week his plans to investigate security measures taken by the Charlotte Area Transit System.
The announcement comes as national outrage over last month's murder of 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light rail car mounts, particularly among Republicans.
In a release, Boliek said the audit would begin immediately. Boliek said the audit would cover content including CATS' private security contracts; the metrics the agency and its contractors use to make public safety decisions; and the organization's safety and security budget.
"The recent lawlessness and violence that have taken place on Charlotte’s public transportation raise serious questions about the security measures in place," Boliek said in a statement.
In a letter about Zarutska's murder posted Monday to social media, Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles wrote that CATS has doubled its security personnel over the last two years and tripled its safety and security budget from $5.8 million to nearly $18 million.
CATS is taking steps like putting more security personnel on Blue Line platforms and increasing fare enforcement, Lyles wrote, with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department also increasing patrols at key transit systems point.
"These changes will allow CATS to fully execute the transit system policing plan, including the Blue Line," Lyles wrote.
Zarutska suffered fatal stab wounds on August 22, about four minutes after sitting down on a Lynx Blue Line train.
Footage released this week shows a man police have identified as DeCarlos Brown Jr. - seated directly behind Zarutska - standing up and stabbing her three times.
Zarutska died a short while later.
Brown, who has a lengthy criminal history, had been free on a written notice to appear on charges of misuse of 911.
Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Justice brought one count of committing an act causing death on a mass transit system against Brown in federal court.
"We will seek the maximum penalty for this unforgivable act of violence — he will never again see the light of day as a free man," U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in a prepared statement.
U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson of the Western District of North Carolina said during a Tuesday press conference announcing the federal charges that CATS could be doing more to protect riders.
"We've seen, recently, people go on the train and report what's going on on the train. It's become a mobile homeless shelter. It's an air conditioned place, there's no one checking tickets, no one's using tickets and quite frankly the revenue from the tickets that could be collected could pay for more security on the train," he said.
Boliek pointed not only to Zarutska's slaying, but also to a March incident where a man was paralyzed after an attack on board a CATS bus and an August incident where a man was hospitalized after being attacked on a bus.
In December 2024, the transit system consolidated its safety and security operations under Professional Security Services, a Charlotte-based private security firm.
Right now, there are 184 security personnel working across the CATS system, an agency spokesperson said. Professional Security Services is contracted to hire up to 219 people and is actively recruiting to reach full staffing within months.
Other measures the transit system and security contractor have taken in recent months include enforcing CATS' exclusion policy to keep repeat offenders off of the transit system and active enforcement of fare compliance.
"CATS remains fully committed to working collaboratively with our local, state, and federal partners. These relationships are essential to our mission, and we value the trust and cooperation they represent as we continue working together to support our region’s transit system," a spokesperson for the transit agency wrote in a statement.
