A Black teenager was sentenced to 35 years in prison on Tuesday after a jury convicted him of murder in the fatal stabbing of a white peer in Texas, the latest development in a case that inflamed racial tensions and brought competing demonstrations to the courthouse grounds.<\/p>\n
The defendant, Karmelo Anthony, now 19, stabbed Austin Metcalf after an altercation at a track meet in April 2025 in Frisco, Texas, an affluent Dallas suburb, on a rainy day. Both were 17 at the time.<\/p>\n
Witnesses said that Mr. Anthony, who attended Centennial High School, sought shelter in a tent belonging to Memorial High School, Mr. Metcalf\u2019s team, and was asked repeatedly to leave.<\/p>\n
Mr. Anthony reportedly grabbed his backpack, reached inside, and said, \u201cTouch me and see what happens.\u201d One witness told the police that Mr. Metcalf had pushed Mr. Anthony to get him to leave the tent.<\/p>\n
Mr. Anthony took out a pocketknife and stabbed Mr. Metcalf in the chest. He died while cradled by his twin brother, Hunter.<\/p>\n
The case unleashed a torrent of disinformation, harassment and death threats that targeted both families involved. The judge who lowered Mr. Anthony\u2019s bond to $250,000, allowing him to go free while awaiting trial, was also targeted. A group called Protect White Americans demonstrated at the stadium where Mr. Metcalf died.<\/p>\n
The Anthonys were falsely accused of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars that were donated to a legal defense fund on a house and car, while false stories spread that the victim had died of a drug overdose. The families were doxxed and swatted. Far-right influencers called for Mr. Anthony to be executed.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore knowing the facts of the case, I knew the racialized aspects of the case,\u201d said Jonathan Reid, a criminologist and sociology professor at Texas A&M University, noting the flood of attention on social media platforms.<\/p>\n
Appearing on Fox News, Jeff Metcalf, Mr. Metcalf\u2019s father, admonished those who had injected racial animus into the case. \u201cDo not turn this into a racial thing \u2014 it was not. Do not politicize this \u2014 it\u2019s not,\u201d he said. \u201cThis was a human being thing. This person made a bad choice and it affected both his family and my family forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to their families, both teenagers excelled in school and sports. Mr. Metcalf was the most valuable player of his football team. Mr. Anthony was the captain of both his track and football teams.<\/p>\n
From the beginning, Mr. Anthony did not deny that he had stabbed Mr. Metcalf, but maintained that he had done so in self-defense. \u201cI was protecting myself,\u201d he told the police as he held his hands in the air during his arrest, according to the police report. \u201cHe put his hands on me.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the eight-day trial, his lawyers argued that he should be acquitted, emphasizing that Mr. Metcalf was far larger than Mr. Anthony was.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor, Bill Wirskye, asked why Mr. Anthony had brought a knife to a track meet. \u201cYou don\u2019t get to meet a shove with a stab, especially if you provoked the shove,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The jury apparently put little stock in the self-defense argument, deliberating for less than three hours before finding Mr. Anthony guilty of murder.<\/p>\n
The jury could have instead convicted him of the lesser offense of manslaughter, or deemed the killing a crime of \u201csudden passion,\u201d which would have given Mr. Anthony a much lower sentence.<\/p>\n
They did not.<\/p>\n
Outside the courthouse after the verdict was read, protesters had gathered. Some toted signs calling for justice for Mr. Metcalf, while others called for Mr. Anthony\u2019s freedom.<\/p>\n
Chris King, who identified himself as a lawyer from out of state, repeated a frequent criticism made by Mr. Anthony\u2019s supporters: that the prosecutors had struck three Black women from the jury, leaving the jury with no Black members.<\/p>\n
Samuel Hall, who said he was the founder and president of United Patriots for America, thought the verdict was fair. \u201cPersonally, I hope he does not get the rest of his life in prison,\u201d he said, \u201cI think he should get an appropriate sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Madaleine Rubin and Eric O\u2019Keefe contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Black teenager was sentenced to 35 years in prison on Tuesday after a jury convicted him of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[12048,118687,43498,78783,118684,118685,118686,14637,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-331915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-anthony","tag-austin-2007-25","tag-dallas-tex","tag-decisions-and-verdicts","tag-interscholastic-athletics","tag-karmelo-2007","tag-metcalf","tag-race-and-ethnicity","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}