(The Center Square) – Steve Federico placed a photo of his daughter for the members of the Committee on the Judiciary panel to see in Charlotte on Monday.
In the Victims of Violent Crime field hearing’s first 15 minutes and 95 seconds into her prepared remarks, North Carolina Democratic U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross identified the image as Iryna Zarutska.
“How dare you not know her!” Federico said interrupting the third-term congresswoman as she moved along to a shooting in Southport over the weekend and called the hearing “too little, too late.”
“This is my daughter, this isn’t Iryna,” Federico said.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I am so sorry. I am so sorry,” Ross said.
“This is Logan Federico,” he told her.
Alexander Dickey is accused of breaking into a home where Logan Federico, 22, was visiting May 3 in Columbia, S.C., while visiting friends at the University of South Carolina. She was shot and killed. Federico is from Waxhaw and was planning to be a teacher.
Dickey’s criminal history includes 25 felonies among 39 arrests.
Zarutska, was aboard a Charlotte light rail train on Aug. 22 when she lost her life in a stabbing. DeCarlos Brown Jr. is charged with murder in his 15th arrest in as many years.
Eleven times between 2013 and 2025, Dickey was taken in by the Lexington County Sheriff’s Office in South Carolina. Charges in the Columbia case include murder, two counts of first-degree burglary, two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime, possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, two counts of grand larceny, grand larceny of a motor vehicle, and three counts of financial transaction card theft.
He could be sentenced to life in prison.
“To those of our witnesses who have lost loved ones to crime, or who were victims themselves,” Ross said before her mistake, “your courage in telling your stories and having your voices heard is so, so important. And my heart goes out to you.”
The Republican majority elected to visit Charlotte for a field hearing in the wake of Zarutska’s death. North Carolina lawmakers have already sent legislation – Iryna’s Law – to the desk of first-term Democratic Gov. Josh Stein, a former attorney general on Monday in his sixth day of deciding whether to sign, veto or allow to become law without his signature on Friday.
In addition to Steve Federico, others testifying included Mia Alderman, grandmother of murder victim Mary Santina Collins; Justin Campbell, a police officer with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department; and Michael Woody, owner and CEO of 828 Bail Bonds and a state representative for the National Association of Bail Agents.
Ross also said, “To my Republican friends, this is not Democrats’ fault. This is the fault of Congress and our Legislature to not do enough. They want you to believe that tough on crime and saying law and order is going to solve the problem. And they want to believe that the slogan will make America safe again.
“But if that is the case, why is the Congress cutting the aid to local law enforcement by $100 million next year? Why are they proposing cuts to the crime victims’ fund? Why do they want to slash juvenile justice grants and hate crime grants? Why are they working to cut federal support for survivors of domestic violence who I hear from every single day by almost $100 million?”
She accused Congress of trying to “defund the police and the FBI” behind closed doors.
“The reality,” she said, “is these cuts undermine public safety, and they don’t give law enforcement the tools they need to keep us safe.”
Ross’ reasoning has been heard and debated in the squabble on crime solutions. It is refuted with how many times suspects such as Brown and Dickey – 54 specific to them – are arrested and returned to the streets through a judicial system with little or no teeth.
Both Democrats and Republicans used the setting for political stands with accusations of misrepresentation.
