Supporters of Karmelo Anthony appeared unprepared for the possibility that he would be held accountable for the fatal stabbing of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at a high school track meet in April 2025. After the verdict was announced, protests erupted outside the courthouse. Anthony supporters chanted, “Free Karmelo!” while one demonstrator shouted, “This whole thing’s been racist!”
As members of the Metcalf family left the courthouse following sentencing and walked toward their vehicle, they were heckled by protesters. One individual could be heard saying, “Hey, we glad Austin’s dead. I’m glad Austin is dead.”
Classy.
The following outburst from an irate protester has been widely circulated on social media. Speaking to a reporter, she said, “What do you want us to do? … I’ve got five boys. I ain’t got nothing to tell them no more. You can’t walk away no more.”
[For an unknown reason, a male protester standing nearby says, “Rest in peace Trayvon Martin,” but I digress.]
A teenager who killed another teenager was convicted of murder in a court of law and is being held accountable. This isn’t complicated.
And X users wasted no time in advising her what to tell her sons.
They suggested the obvious: “Uh … don’t murder?”
They all offered the woman the same advice:
https://x.com/AndrewKolvet/status/2064437276118327773?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://x.com/jsg_squared/status/2064442741774565560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Naturally, satire site The Babylon Bee saw the absurdity in the woman’s remarks and published a post titled, “Nation Shocked As Jury Rules You Cannot Stab Someone In The Heart For No Reason At All.”
Another user attached a post written several hours before the verdict was reached by Sholdon Daniels, a prominent black attorney who practices in Collin County, Texas, the same county where the trial took place. He wrote:
Karmelo Anthony will be convicted and sentenced to life in prison.As he should.He murdered that boy because he was raised to hate white people and to view himself as a victim in every situation.It’s a culture thing.
https://x.com/DanteHendo4188/status/2064498003725975966?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Another posted the following quote from economist, historian, and commentator Thomas Sowell: “When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.”
https://x.com/MusicalWhiskey/status/2064444749705314309?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
What made the woman’s outburst so striking was that she seemed genuinely bewildered by the outcome. Yet the lesson many X users urged her to teach her sons was neither complicated nor controversial: don’t carry a knife to a school event, don’t escalate a trivial dispute into a deadly confrontation, and don’t stab another person in the chest.
A jury heard the evidence, weighed the self-defense claim, and returned a guilty verdict. That is not evidence of systemic injustice; it is evidence that actions have consequences. If some Anthony supporters are struggling to explain the verdict to their children, perhaps the problem is not the verdict itself, but the expectations they brought into the courtroom.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on LinkedIn.
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