{"id":102850,"date":"2026-01-17T00:36:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T00:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/102850\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T00:36:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T00:36:38","slug":"elon-musk-funded-mural-of-murdered-ukrainian-refugee-iryna-zarutska-went-up-in-brooklyn-and-local-lefties-are-furious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/102850\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk-funded mural of murdered Ukrainian Refugee Iryna Zarutska went up in Brooklyn \u2014 and local lefties are furious"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new mural of slain Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska<\/a> that was funded in part by Elon Musk has popped up on a Brooklyn building \u2014 and furious local lefties claim it\u2019s part of a right-wing plot.<\/p>\n

The three-story painting of Zarutska\u2014 who made national headlines when she was stabbed to death by a homeless ex-con<\/a> on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina in August \u2014 was installed on an apartment building in a trendy section of Bushwick a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n

A new mural of murdered Ukrainian Refugee Iryna Zarutska funded in part by Elon Musk has gone up on a trendy Brooklyn building. Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post<\/p>\n

The artwork on the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Evergreen Street is part of a campaign launched by conservative tech CEO Eoghan McCabe to honor the 23-year-old aspiring artist with murals depicting her in several cities. He told The Post he wanted to highlight how crime in liberal areas can lead to tragedies like Zarutska\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started this campaign to make sure that the story of Iryna does not disappear. Her murder is at the nexus of many issues plaguing American society. For example, one is the progressive approach to crime,\u201d said.<\/p>\n

McCabe, who runs the AI firm Intercom, donated $500,000 to the tribute initiative\u00a0and collected $1 million from Musk, a spokeswoman for McCabe told The Post. They also raised $200,000 from smaller donors.<\/p>\n

The artwork on the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Evergreen Street. Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post<\/p>\n

As images of the painting on the building, which is home to the Taiwanese dumpling restaurant Formosa, first got praise from those saddened by the young woman\u2019s tragic loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeautiful!! What a lovely tribute to a beautiful girl and a beautiful life! RIP Iryna!! . . . I\u2019m so sorry the USA failed you!!\u201d said a user named Mary Signorino on a Facebook post that also showed other murals commissioned by McCabe in Washington DC, Miami and Los Angeles. <\/p>\n

But a backlash to the campaign by the conservative billionaire came quickly, as lefties on a Bushwick neighborhood reddit page<\/a> angrily called the the mural propaganda from \u201canti immigrant fascists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iryna Zarutska was killed by an ex-con on a train in Charlotte in August. Instagram\/ Iryna Zarutska<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has become part of the endless fodder that balloons our police department budgets and welcomes masked unaccountable thugs into our neighborhoods to kidnap our friends, family, and neighbors,\u201d the Redditor wrote, in an apparent reference to immigration enforcement,\u201d a user on the site fumed.<\/p>\n

Another critic fumed, \u201cThis needs to come down. Of course she deserves to be memorialized, but using her memory to stoke racial tensions is sick. The motivation behind this is evil.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others said they suspected Musk zeroed in on Brooklyn simply to stoke political tensions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis woman \u2014 it\u2019s unfortunate what happened to her \u2014 but how do you connect her to Bushwick?\u201d Joe, a 42-year-old graphic artist who lives nearby, told The Post Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people around here don\u2019t like him so maybe this is his way to use his money to stick it to us. Go find somewhere else where they support you and your politics,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The mural was painted by Connecticut-based artist Ben Keller. Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post<\/p>\n

Musk donated $1 million to the mural campaign. REUTERS<\/p>\n

Dylan Goodwin, 38, said he loved the mural, painted by Connecticut-based artist Ben Keller,\u00a0 but hated one of the people paying for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is nice, but, you know, then you say Elon Musk, and I can\u2019t stand the guy,\u201d\u00a0 said Goodwin, who works in the film industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

McCabe himself, who donated to President Trump\u2019s presidential campaign, has also made headlines for right-wing stances, such as calling for the \u201crapid public execution\u201d of killers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think that rapid, public executions for crimes like this are a spiritual goal that we should point ourselves towards. I worry about Western society if we can\u2019t react in proportion to how evil this is,\u201d he wrote on X in September, in reference to Zarutska\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n

He told The Post Friday by email that: \u201cThe vast majority of violent crime is perpetrated by a very small fraction of the population. When cities refuse to incarcerate these people, they get a lot more violent crime. Iryna\u2019s killer had been arrested 14 times before he executed her.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked about the backlash from the left to the mural campaign he said it was only a small part of the reaction. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe campaign has received remarkably broad support across the political spectrum. We\u2019re aware of very little discontent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Decarlos Brown Jr, 34, was arrested for fatally stabbing Zarutska. Charlotte CATS<\/p>\n

Some have defended his art campaign, which has put up murals of Zarutska in several other cities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy that she is being remembered. Hopefully it serves as reminder not only just the sweet girl she was, but the importance of protecting innocents from senseless acts of violence,\u201d one commenter wrote in a Facebook post<\/a> about the murals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFantastic tribute, I hope they put one on the train line in North Carolina where she was murdered,\u201d another user wrote.<\/p>\n

Decarlos Brown Jr, 34, an unhinged schizophrenic man with a lengthy rap sheet, was arrested immediately following the fatal stabbing of\u00a0 Zarutska.<\/p>\n

A rep for Musk didn\u2019t respond to a call from The Post Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new mural of slain Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska that was funded in part by Elon Musk has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1149,98,100,99,2411,2301,57,9,24,63,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-102850","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-art","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","11":"tag-brooklyn-news","12":"tag-elon-musk","13":"tag-immigration","14":"tag-metro","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}