A Texas jury found Karmelo Anthony guilty of murder for the fatal stabbing of Austin Metcalf in April 2025, rejecting Anthony’s claim that the killing was an act of self-defense. Anthony was sentenced to serve a 35-year sentence, with eligibility for parole after serving half of the time.
The incident occurred at a track meet after a group of students from Metcalf’s school, Frisco Memorial High School, saw Anthony under their team’s tent in the opposing Frisco Centennial High School gear. After being approached and asked to leave the tent 15 times over two minutes by several Memorial students, Anthony responded by saying, “Touch me and find out,” while he had his hand in his open backpack on his lap. Metcalf then gave Anthony what was described as a “minor push.” Anthony pulled out a folding knife and stabbed Metcalf in the chest. Both boys were 17 years old. The blade pierced Metcalf’s heart, and he died shortly afterward in the arms of his twin brother. (RELATED: The Spectacle Ep. 429: Karmelo Anthony Trial Is a Race-Baiting Scandal)
Anthony’s defense argued that Metcalf provoked him and that the stabbing was in self-defense. The jury rejected that claim. As Randy Zelin, an attorney not involved in the case, put it, “You can’t be justified in killing someone with a knife and stabbing them in the chest if they were not about to immediately use deadly force on you … you have the absence of the ability to use deadly force versus someone having deadly force immediately on hand.”
The case should be morally straightforward: a young man was killed, and a jury found his killer guilty. Instead, the case was turned into a racial morality circus by activists, commentators, and Anthony’s defense team. (RELATED: Five Quick Things: Henry Nowak, the Inevitable British Civil War, and What It Means for Us)
During the trial, Anthony’s family and his attorneys repeatedly claimed he was the victim of racism due to the prosecution’s objection to three black candidates to the jury. The prosecutors explained that because the individuals were teachers, they “may have biased sympathies toward either the defendant and victim,” who were both high schoolers. They also claim that his murder conviction and severe sentencing, rather than a lighter charge such as manslaughter, were part of a racist pattern.
Proceedings during the trial drew crowds of mostly black supporters and activists who chanted their backing for Anthony even after the jury rejected his self-defense claim. “We love Karmelo! We love him!””Racist!” and “Free Karmelo!”
One online figure, performer Cardi B, criticized the verdict on X. “Wow! Just freakin wow! DISGUSTING… This is not justice, this is trying to make an example!!!” Cardi B’s reaction is emblematic of a broader tendency to treat all unfavorable verdicts in racially charged criminal cases as indictments of the justice system.
Texas U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Democrat, suggested that she, too, would have stabbed Austin Metcalf while misrepresenting the facts of the case. “If a 300-pound man is beating, like on top of me and beating me down, I’m not limited to fists,” said Crockett. Metcalf was six foot and 200 pounds. Crockett’s framing transforms the case from a stabbing into a fantasy of racial self-defense.
The contrast of the framing of the case by Anthony’s family and supporters to Metcalf’s family is stark. Jeff Metcalf, the victim’s father, pleaded in his victim statement after the verdict that the case was “never about race … Please don’t make it about race,” while describing the harassment his family endured during the painful trial, including repeated swatting.
The jury heard the evidence and convicted Anthony of murder. The facts were clear enough. But for those committed to seeing justice through the lens of racial politics, even a teenager stabbed through the heart cannot be allowed to remain a victim. Justice cannot survive the kind of racial politics that only respect verdicts that fit the preferred narrative. Austin Metcalf was killed, and Karmelo Anthony was convicted: that should be enough.
