PROVIDENCE — A mural honoring Iryna Zarutska — the 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee stabbed to death on a Charlotte train last August — is on pause at a Providence gay bar after BLM-aligned activists complained that a murder victim's memorial was the wrong kind of politics.
The mural, painted on the rear exterior wall of The Dark Lady in downtown Providence, was nearly complete when the backlash hit. Artist Ian Gaudreau, a local painter who said he was moved by Zarutska's story, stopped work last week after community pressure mounted.
Zarutska had fled Kyiv in 2022 after Russia's invasion, settled in Charlotte, and was working at a pizzeria and taking college classes when Decarlos Dejuan Brown Jr. — a 34-year-old with 14 prior arrests, multiple felony convictions, and a documented history of untreated schizophrenia — pulled a pocketknife on the Lynx Blue Line and stabbed her three times. Once in the neck. Once in the chest. Once in the knee. She collapsed and died at the scene.
She was 23 years old.
Decarlos Dejuan Brown Jr., 34, charged with first-degree murder and federal charges in the death of Iryna Zarutska. Brown had 14 prior arrests, multiple felony convictions including armed robbery, and was released from prison in September 2020. His family sought involuntary psychiatric commitment before the attack. The system denied the request. (Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office via WBTV)
Brown had been released from prison in 2020. His family had sought involuntary commitment. The system said no.
After surveillance footage of the attack circulated in September, a national campaign funded by private donors commissioned murals across the country in Zarutska's memory. Murals went up in New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Charlotte. Then came Providence.
The objections at The Dark Lady were quick and pointed. Clubgoer Lex Conaway told NBC10: "Where are the murals for everyone that died for Black Lives Matter? I haven't seen any of those."
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The venue's owners — who identify as "progressive Democrats" — paused the project and issued a statement attempting to reframe it. The mural, they now explained, was actually about "mental wellness, LGBTQIA+ rights, immigration, the war, unity, and anti-Trump policies." They promised to release the final rendering so the "TRUE meaning" could be understood.
Gaudreau, for his part, told NBC10 he just wanted to honor her. "The way that she was just so publicly murdered," he said. That was enough for him.
It wasn't enough for everyone else. BLM Rhode Island had previously felt slighted by the city over its own mural — a separate, older grievance — and the broader progressive community saw Zarutska's national memorial campaign as a cause to be resisted rather than a dead woman to be mourned.
Local resident Nicholas Bassett told NBC10 to keep politics out of it. "Let the art speak for itself," he said.
The r/providence subreddit had other ideas. A thread titled "New propaganda piece going up downtown" racked up 724 upvotes and hundreds of comments, most of them hostile. "Good lord the right just make bad art," wrote u/bjebha. u/Appropriate-Invite97 asked, simply: "Anyone play paintball in Providence?"
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The art is currently on pause. And as of Sunday, the mayor wants it gone entirely.
NBC10 reporter Ryan Medeiros broke the news that Mayor Brett Smiley's office has now weighed in — and not in favor of the mural.
Smiley — a Democrat who took office in 2023 and received recent national attention due to the Brown University shooting — has not yet made a public statement. More details are expected on NBC10 Sunday night.
Iryna Zarutska survived a war. She crossed an ocean. She was stabbed to death on a Friday night on a train in North Carolina by a man the system had already failed to contain. Seven months later, the mayor of Providence wants her portrait taken off a wall.
The mural is nearly done. The city has other ideas.
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