I completely agree with you. As for the donations of probably over $400,000 by now to the kid's GiveSendGo account, I can't help but wonder if a sizable sum of the total of that was made by a handful of leftist wealthy donors who also fund the likes of BLM. Of course it's unlikely these donations are made in the name of these rich donors, so they won't show up on the givers list. Leftists of the worse kind want to sow racial discord, and miss no opportunities to manufacture them or take advantage of circumstances like this. I could get even more into the weeds of speculation, but I'll stop. The only thing that kid deserves is a fair trial, but my guess is he won't get one and will be found not guilty, if he even gets to trial. Sickening.
I don't think he gets off, unless a hard core racist is allowed in the jury pool. Someone like that would likely reject the facts and evidence, and resort to the CRT thought free shortcut of oppressor/oppressed dichotomy. The killer was black (oppressed), the victim was white (oppressor), so, well, 'nuf said. The race baiters on the Left are always looking stir the pot to harvest votes from emotion driven voters, and in the most heterogenous society in the world, it is a foolish and dangerous strategy to pursue.
I truly hope you are correct, but even if he's tried and convicted I have little faith he will get anything more than a slap on the wrist, especially if he is tried as a juvenile. Unfortunately, a judge could make that decision, and judges obviously cannot be trusted to do their job without prejudice. The murder occurred in TX, so if by some rare chance, an ethical and moral judge presides, he may get the punishment he deserves. No. I'm not going to give Anthony the benefit of the doubt. He intended to do what he did, and I don't have to be a mind reader to know that. Certainly, I would not be chosen as a juror in his trial...if he gets one.
Excellent discussion concerning this killing. Many good points to consider; and, of course I'll be sharing this so others can consider these points. Thanks, John.
They say brevity is the soul of wit, but I guess I was too brief.
What I mean is, I object to the inclusion of that question as a legitimate question. Part of the freedom of being a free man is the freedom to carry legitimate tools, include tools that are useful for self-defense. There's absolutely nothing wrong with his person having had a knife with him; only with what he did with it.
I totally get the point you're making, but I still think If a high school student stabs someone to death for no good reason at a school event, it's pretty legitimate to ask some hard questions about why they were carrying a knife in that situation.
For Karmelo, there was no reason for him to having a knife. He was at school. Due to Federal laws, students are not allowed to have guns or knives on them. They cannot even carry pepper spray on campus. Being caught with a gun or a knife most often leads to expulsion.
I am old enough to have gone to school when guns and knives were not banned on school grounds. I took my hunting rifle to school so I could make a new stock for it in wood shop. I did not need permission. During hunting season, many came to school with guns openly displayed in gun racks. This is because they would go hunting before school or after school. We did not have the issue of students using guns against others.
I carried a knife with me every day. It was a useful tool for many reasons. Rarely were they used to assault others. We tended to get into a fight, and win or lose, we did not retaliate with a gun or knife. The fight was over and all was good. It was not the best way to resolve conflicts, but it worked. As we matured, we learned better ways to resolve conflicts. Today, a kid at school with a knife is most likely carrying it to use against someone they have a conflict with.
I have been teaching long enough to know what most likely happened. I suspect he has a long list of disciplinary issues at school. He is the type that believes he can do whatever he wants and no one is going to tell him otherwise. He does not care about the rules and believes there should be no consequences for violating the rules. He will usually say he had to do what he did because the other person was the cause. The other person upset me so I had to defend myself.
Remember, for many teens today, self-defense means doing whatever it takes to defend yourself from others dissing you, telling you what to do, or just plain annoying you. Nobody is going to tell me what to do.
He went to that tent just because he wanted to. He was not at the meet because of an interest in sports. He was planning to chill with friends and do anything else to relieve his boredom. He saw the tent and just wanted to check it out. It might hold something that he wants and is not available on the home side. When told to leave, he was not going to take anyone telling him what to do. His anger increased and he made it clear, do not touch me or I will off on you. These are the same kids that will attack a school staff person because they touched them. When you look more closely, the staff person had a legitiment reason to do so. This happens most often when the kid is hurting another student, or physically assaulting an adult that angered them. They then claim it was the adult's fault because they are not supposed to touch a minor.
There have been a couple of times I had to defend myself against a student assaulting me and I used the minimum force to protect myself or other students only to have a lawsuit filed against me by the student's parents. I have prevailed every time because it gets dismissed. The law allows school staff to physically intervene when a student is a danger to himself or others.
You present an experienced voice and an insightful view of the cause. What is your reasoning that Anthony has had $400,000 donated to help his legal defense?
I think that's an easy one to answer. This is BLM 2.0. "Saint" George Floyd was a criminal who died of a Fentynal overdose while resisting arrest. But none of the facts mattered to the progressives trying to make a political point and to divide Americans based on skin color. When we see his family using those donations to buy a house and a big black Escalade, we see what the race hustlers are really all about, don't we.
You're correct about carrying the knife......IF YOU ARE A TRADESMAN AT HIS JOB,,not a high school student at a SCHOOL FUNCTION,,,,,,,where CARRYING ANY KIND.....ANY KIND OF WEAPON IS ILLEGAL.......So NO,,Karmelo SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD A KNIFE WITH HIM AT A SCHOOL EVENT,,,,,,and I'm pretty damn sure HE KNEW HE WASNT SUPPOSED TO,,EITHER........... So there goes your carrying a knife defense.......RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW. He was 100% WRONG for having a knife with him.......if security was checking bags at that event,,,YOU CAN BET YOUR ASS HE WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ADMITTED IN WITH THAT KNIFE...........so,,game over for your defense
Like it or not, schools never allow kids to have guns, either, which in other situations are legitimate tools of self-defense. I heard Clay and Buck talk about the size of the knife Karmello was carrying. It wasn't a Swiss army knife, it had a long blade that with one stab was able to reach deep into the victim's chest and punctured the heart. Definitely not a thing to carry around at school.
You're correct about carrying the knife......IF YOU ARE A TRADESMAN AT HIS JOB,,not a high school student at a SCHOOL FUNCTION,,,,,,,where CARRYING ANY KIND.....ANY KIND OF WEAPON IS ILLEGAL.......So NO,,Karmelo SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD A KNIFE WITH HIM AT A SCHOOL EVENT,,,,,,and I'm pretty damn sure HE KNEW HE WASNT SUPPOSED TO,,EITHER........... So there goes your carrying a knife defense.......RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW. He was 100% WRONG for having a knife with him.......if security was checking bags at that event,,,YOU CAN BET YOUR ASS HE WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ADMITTED IN WITH THAT KNIFE...........so,,game over for your defense
You're correct about carrying the knife......IF YOU ARE A TRADESMAN AT HIS JOB,,not a high school student at a SCHOOL FUNCTION,,,,,,,where CARRYING ANY KIND.....ANY KIND OF WEAPON IS ILLEGAL.......So NO,,Karmelo SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD A KNIFE WITH HIM AT A SCHOOL EVENT,,,,,,and I'm pretty damn sure HE KNEW HE WASNT SUPPOSED TO,,EITHER........... So there goes your carrying a knife defense.......RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW. He was 100% WRONG for having a knife with him.......if security was checking bags at that event,,,YOU CAN BET YOUR ASS HE WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ADMITTED IN WITH THAT KNIFE...........so,,game over for your defense
Very good article. I hope you don’t mind if I link an op-ed I’ve written about the case here, but I understand if you do - and if you subsequently delete it:
It’s extremely glaring to me that in your article you refer to Anthony as a man as opposed to a 17 year old minor like Metcalf. History has repeatedly referee to, spoken of, and envisioned black boys as older and more dangerous than they’ve are especially in comparison to their white counterparts.
It is telling that your concern lies not with the actions that led to a young man’s death, but with the choice to use the word “man.”
To argue that referring to a 17-year-old as a man is inherently racially biased assumes that language must always defer to narrative, not truth. But age is not the sole determinant of manhood—actions, responsibilities, and consequences often speak louder. When someone engages in behavior that carries lethal consequences, society does not—and should not—infantilize that person because it is politically fashionable to do so.
Sure, the idea that black males are routinely “aged up” in public discourse is potentially a legitimate historical concern. It has roots in the dehumanizing propaganda of Jim Crow, in the “superpredator” myth of the 1990s, and in media failures like the Central Park Five. These were real injustices. But invoking that history as a blanket explanation for every modern incident—especially without grappling with the facts of a case—collapses moral discernment into grievance.
You claim to pray for a fair judicial process, but what you are actually doing is sleight of hand—transforming a clear and violent act, already supported by publicly available facts, into moral theater. This is not a call for justice. It is narrative substitution. It is linguistic activism crafted not to illuminate truth, but to manufacture pity and obscure responsibility.
Racial bias must be exposed where it exists, but it must never be used as a universal solvent to dissolve individual responsibility. If we are to affirm that young black men are more than stereotypes, we must also affirm their capacity for moral choice. That is what it means to treat someone as fully human. To do otherwise—to suggest that black youth cannot be held to the same standards of discernment, judgment, and consequence—is not empathy. It is paternalism. It is the quiet racism of diminished expectations cloaked in the language of advocacy.
And let's not confuse systemic data with individual justice. The statistics around black youth incarceration, trauma, and misperception—while concerning and worthy of public debate—do not preclude the need to assess specific situations based on specific facts. Justice is not statistical. It is particular. It is case by case. The danger is not in discussing racial bias. The danger is in allowing that discussion to replace the truth when truth becomes inconvenient.
Real justice is not advanced by softening language to suit sensitivities, but by confronting hard truths with moral clarity—treating individuals, regardless of race, as beings of both dignity and consequence. When narrative is elevated above fact, and symbolism above substance, we do not pursue justice—we obscure it. In doing so, we risk replacing accountability with theater: a stage where evidence is optional, responsibility is deflected, and all that remains is a hashtag, a script, and the illusion of virtue. That is not justice. That is propaganda with better lighting.
You are the exact juror a defense attorney looks for in a high profile murder case. And if it is a black on white murder the attorney has the media on his side to assure he wins the case.
The next time you hear of a gang initiation murder, you can feel solace in the fact the killer will have to live with the memory.
I haven't seen regret from Karmelo Anthony in any of the reports I've read. Tell me why you think he'll "live with the memory of killing another human being". My take on his reported demeanor is that he moved and acted in a cold, calculated manner, regardless of the "adults' foolishness" in spending the GoFundMe monies.
I recently read a series of books by John Douglas, a retired FB Special Agent that was instrumental in laying the groundwork for criminal profiling. He has studied hundreds of the worst of the worst criminals. He found that they have no problem living with the knowledge they killed another human, and this goes for those that commit their first murder as a minor. The commonality is the belief they had to do it because the person was interfering with their ability to get what they wanted at that moment. Sometimes the murders happen because it gives them a sense of having the power of life and death over others. If the victim was murdered, it is no big deal, the victim was too weak and did not deserve to live.
I just read the police report on the incident. Anthony had grabbed Metcalf's, opened in and reached inside. Metcalf took exception to this and Anthony responded touch me and see what happens. He then pulled the knife out of his bag and stabbed Metcalf.
Anthony was the aggressor. How many of you would be okay if someone else grabbed your bag and was going through it? Most would object strongly and say cut it out and give back my property. Anthony was not going to stop unless someone used force against him. Anthony made that clear when he stabbed Metcalf because Metcalf demanded that Anthony leave his personal stuff alone.
I have worked in a high school with a student population of over 50% living in one of the worst gang infested areas of the city. Violence was so bad, the police would not enter unless there were a minimum of 20 officers going in with the SWAT team. When Law Enforcement went in, there was a high probability that they would be shot at.
Many of these students had no concept of personal property. If they saw something they wanted, they took it. If you resisted, they would go get some friends and return to take it while giving you a lesson why it was unwise to resist in the first place. All too often the victim was seriously injured resulting in life altering injuries that will be with them the rest of their lives or were brutally beaten to death.
Numerous times these students would attempt to go through my backpack to take whatever they wanted. A few would not stop after I caught them and so I forcibly told it back. Had I not, and they left the room with it, the administration had no way and no interest in seeing my property returned to me. I was blamed for leaving it somewhere where they found it. I had it locked up in a cabinet but the locks the school used were cheap and easily defeated.
These kids carried knives and guns because they were planning to use those weapons against anyone that gets in their way.
As usual with most school districts today, they will ignore the question of why he had a knife to start with. Every high school student knows being caught with a gun or knife creates serious problems and can expect to be arrested and expelled.
When the arresting officer told Anthony that he was under arrest for allegedly stabbing Metcalf, Anthony stated that there was nothing alleged about it, he stabbed him. He then asked the officer if Metcalf was doing well. Upon learning that Metcalf died, he asked the officer if stabbing Metcalf could be considered self-defense because Metcalf had touched him.
Anthony's family are blaming Metcalf because he did not just let Anthony take the bag and are blaming the school for not canceling the track meet due to rain. Children should not be running in the rain and for their safety, the meet should have been cancelled. Had it been cancelled, Anthony would not have had the opportunity to stab Metcalf.
I ran track and cross-country in high school. Meets do not get canceled due to rain. It is an outdoor sport and you deal with the weather. Every competitor faces the same conditions so they are affected equally.
Anthony has no problem living with the fact he murdered another human. He will boast about it because it gives him street cred. He will be looked up to be his peers on the street.
It rarely is achieved. A significant number of my students were illiterate. I had some seniors who just could not read, let alone write a complete sentence.
The state and federal government's policies promote this. If your graduation rate is below what is mandated, you lose funding. If state test scores are not where they should be, you lose funding. If suspension and expulsion rates are different between the different ethnic groups, then you lose funding.
At the school I was at, the suspension and expulsion rates were triple for the black and hispanic students compared to white and asian students. The Federal Office of Civil rights investigated and concluded our disciplinary policies were biased against black and hispanic students.
These polices were well defined, if you do A, the consequences is B. Every offense got the same exact consequence. If you were involved in two fights in a year or three over the 4 years of high school, you were expelled. If you had a 5th offense of bringing drugs to school, you were expelled. Bring a gun to school, you were expelled.
The majority of our black and hispanic students lived in the large gang infested area. They were all poor and living in subsidized housing. The majority of adults did not work, they were drug dealers and thieves (they stole to resell). If you are born into a 5th generation gang family where no adult has a legitimate job, you learn that this behavior is normal. You are encouraged to participate and if you do not, you are physically assaulted or worse. If you do not join the gang, through the gang initiation process, you will be physically assaulted nearly every day.
I have had a handful of students get out of the life because they took full advantage of every educational opportunity they had and upon graduation, left for college far from home and cut all ties. There is lots of scholarship money for these students. The school works with these students to ensure that no person in their home life knows where they are going to college. The student uses the school address for everything and the counselor then gives their mail to them in the office.
The result of punitive policies for students not succeeding has the opposite of its intended effect. Schools push hard for teachers to lower their standards. This is why many are pushing for the policy of a minimum grade of 50% for every assignment and test, even if the student did not do the work. We do not want them to dig a hole so deep they cannot get out. At the same time they are pushing to lower the D- grade to 50%. Now, everyone passes and graduates.
I refused to play the game. In my state, teachers are protected by the education code that states the teacher is the only one that determines the grade. No administrator can overrule a teacher's grade. I had two administrators change grades for some of my students. When I caught them, I reported it to the registrar who filed a report with the district and the state. The administrators were let go within a month.
I have the evidence because I print out my grades from the electronic grade book and I keep a separate grade book on my personal computer, that is not provided by the district. That way they cannot access my computer.
Every time there is School reform, it waters down the curriculum and results in lowering the standards. Sometimes they raise the standards but then blame the schools for not meeting them.
In my state, math is a great example. All freshmen are required to take Algebra, even if they are not ready for it. Schools cannot offer remedial math courses for those students who do not have the math skills to do algebra. The teacher has to use scaffolding to develop an individual lesson plan for each student so they, in theory, will learn all they need to in order to be successful in algebra. Of course it does not work. How are you going to do that for 180 students? The students that fail have a history of not doing school going back to elementary school. We cannot retain them because that shows racial bias. By the time they are Seniors and still have not passed math, they are placed in credit recovery. They do all the work on a computer, including taking tests, and they get as many tries to pass the test as needed. I have seen the program grade a student's test and then every question that was answered correctly was taken out of the repeat test. This continues until the student answered correctly the number they need to in order to pass. On a multiple choice test with 4 choices, students can get a passing grade by the third or fourth retake. Their wrong answers are always greyed out on the retake so you just check another answer until you get it right.
To make up for the loss of money due to poor math scores, the district applies for state and federal grants to get money to improve math education. They get many times more the funds than the state took away. Teachers are paid well to work these programs after school. Some teachers can double their salary doing this. I know one teacher that did this for a couple of years and then went down and purchased a $100,000 Mercedes with cash, and this was 10 years ago. It had everything. Teachers like me are still driving a 30 year old vehicle that we keep running.
The Department of Education is a scam for handing out money to schools who are failing so they can continue to fail. Students and staff are now being financially rewarded for failing. I want the department of education to be abolished. This will put it all on the states and some states will do it right and the others will continue on the current downward spiral. Then it will be obvious which states are doing education right.
I have learned that if you keep the bar high and demonstrate to students they can reach it and how to reach it, then many will perform at higher standards. Those that do not will continue to fail like they have done their entire life. The few who follow through learn they can do school and their self-worth increases and the are put on the path to being successful in life.
I completely agree with you. As for the donations of probably over $400,000 by now to the kid's GiveSendGo account, I can't help but wonder if a sizable sum of the total of that was made by a handful of leftist wealthy donors who also fund the likes of BLM. Of course it's unlikely these donations are made in the name of these rich donors, so they won't show up on the givers list. Leftists of the worse kind want to sow racial discord, and miss no opportunities to manufacture them or take advantage of circumstances like this. I could get even more into the weeds of speculation, but I'll stop. The only thing that kid deserves is a fair trial, but my guess is he won't get one and will be found not guilty, if he even gets to trial. Sickening.
I don't think he gets off, unless a hard core racist is allowed in the jury pool. Someone like that would likely reject the facts and evidence, and resort to the CRT thought free shortcut of oppressor/oppressed dichotomy. The killer was black (oppressed), the victim was white (oppressor), so, well, 'nuf said. The race baiters on the Left are always looking stir the pot to harvest votes from emotion driven voters, and in the most heterogenous society in the world, it is a foolish and dangerous strategy to pursue.
I truly hope you are correct, but even if he's tried and convicted I have little faith he will get anything more than a slap on the wrist, especially if he is tried as a juvenile. Unfortunately, a judge could make that decision, and judges obviously cannot be trusted to do their job without prejudice. The murder occurred in TX, so if by some rare chance, an ethical and moral judge presides, he may get the punishment he deserves. No. I'm not going to give Anthony the benefit of the doubt. He intended to do what he did, and I don't have to be a mind reader to know that. Certainly, I would not be chosen as a juror in his trial...if he gets one.
Excellent discussion concerning this killing. Many good points to consider; and, of course I'll be sharing this so others can consider these points. Thanks, John.
Most excellent.
Almost excellent.
My one objection is the question, "why did he have a knife?"
I referred to that question twice in the article.
You did. I missed it (reading while on hold during work meetings) and said, what about the knife. I scrolled back up and saw it 🤣
He asked that in #4 (although admittedly, the first time I read it I missed it).
They say brevity is the soul of wit, but I guess I was too brief.
What I mean is, I object to the inclusion of that question as a legitimate question. Part of the freedom of being a free man is the freedom to carry legitimate tools, include tools that are useful for self-defense. There's absolutely nothing wrong with his person having had a knife with him; only with what he did with it.
I totally get the point you're making, but I still think If a high school student stabs someone to death for no good reason at a school event, it's pretty legitimate to ask some hard questions about why they were carrying a knife in that situation.
For Karmelo, there was no reason for him to having a knife. He was at school. Due to Federal laws, students are not allowed to have guns or knives on them. They cannot even carry pepper spray on campus. Being caught with a gun or a knife most often leads to expulsion.
I am old enough to have gone to school when guns and knives were not banned on school grounds. I took my hunting rifle to school so I could make a new stock for it in wood shop. I did not need permission. During hunting season, many came to school with guns openly displayed in gun racks. This is because they would go hunting before school or after school. We did not have the issue of students using guns against others.
I carried a knife with me every day. It was a useful tool for many reasons. Rarely were they used to assault others. We tended to get into a fight, and win or lose, we did not retaliate with a gun or knife. The fight was over and all was good. It was not the best way to resolve conflicts, but it worked. As we matured, we learned better ways to resolve conflicts. Today, a kid at school with a knife is most likely carrying it to use against someone they have a conflict with.
I have been teaching long enough to know what most likely happened. I suspect he has a long list of disciplinary issues at school. He is the type that believes he can do whatever he wants and no one is going to tell him otherwise. He does not care about the rules and believes there should be no consequences for violating the rules. He will usually say he had to do what he did because the other person was the cause. The other person upset me so I had to defend myself.
Remember, for many teens today, self-defense means doing whatever it takes to defend yourself from others dissing you, telling you what to do, or just plain annoying you. Nobody is going to tell me what to do.
He went to that tent just because he wanted to. He was not at the meet because of an interest in sports. He was planning to chill with friends and do anything else to relieve his boredom. He saw the tent and just wanted to check it out. It might hold something that he wants and is not available on the home side. When told to leave, he was not going to take anyone telling him what to do. His anger increased and he made it clear, do not touch me or I will off on you. These are the same kids that will attack a school staff person because they touched them. When you look more closely, the staff person had a legitiment reason to do so. This happens most often when the kid is hurting another student, or physically assaulting an adult that angered them. They then claim it was the adult's fault because they are not supposed to touch a minor.
There have been a couple of times I had to defend myself against a student assaulting me and I used the minimum force to protect myself or other students only to have a lawsuit filed against me by the student's parents. I have prevailed every time because it gets dismissed. The law allows school staff to physically intervene when a student is a danger to himself or others.
You present an experienced voice and an insightful view of the cause. What is your reasoning that Anthony has had $400,000 donated to help his legal defense?
I think that's an easy one to answer. This is BLM 2.0. "Saint" George Floyd was a criminal who died of a Fentynal overdose while resisting arrest. But none of the facts mattered to the progressives trying to make a political point and to divide Americans based on skin color. When we see his family using those donations to buy a house and a big black Escalade, we see what the race hustlers are really all about, don't we.
You're correct about carrying the knife......IF YOU ARE A TRADESMAN AT HIS JOB,,not a high school student at a SCHOOL FUNCTION,,,,,,,where CARRYING ANY KIND.....ANY KIND OF WEAPON IS ILLEGAL.......So NO,,Karmelo SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD A KNIFE WITH HIM AT A SCHOOL EVENT,,,,,,and I'm pretty damn sure HE KNEW HE WASNT SUPPOSED TO,,EITHER........... So there goes your carrying a knife defense.......RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW. He was 100% WRONG for having a knife with him.......if security was checking bags at that event,,,YOU CAN BET YOUR ASS HE WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ADMITTED IN WITH THAT KNIFE...........so,,game over for your defense
Like it or not, schools never allow kids to have guns, either, which in other situations are legitimate tools of self-defense. I heard Clay and Buck talk about the size of the knife Karmello was carrying. It wasn't a Swiss army knife, it had a long blade that with one stab was able to reach deep into the victim's chest and punctured the heart. Definitely not a thing to carry around at school.
You're correct about carrying the knife......IF YOU ARE A TRADESMAN AT HIS JOB,,not a high school student at a SCHOOL FUNCTION,,,,,,,where CARRYING ANY KIND.....ANY KIND OF WEAPON IS ILLEGAL.......So NO,,Karmelo SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD A KNIFE WITH HIM AT A SCHOOL EVENT,,,,,,and I'm pretty damn sure HE KNEW HE WASNT SUPPOSED TO,,EITHER........... So there goes your carrying a knife defense.......RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW. He was 100% WRONG for having a knife with him.......if security was checking bags at that event,,,YOU CAN BET YOUR ASS HE WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ADMITTED IN WITH THAT KNIFE...........so,,game over for your defense
You're correct about carrying the knife......IF YOU ARE A TRADESMAN AT HIS JOB,,not a high school student at a SCHOOL FUNCTION,,,,,,,where CARRYING ANY KIND.....ANY KIND OF WEAPON IS ILLEGAL.......So NO,,Karmelo SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD A KNIFE WITH HIM AT A SCHOOL EVENT,,,,,,and I'm pretty damn sure HE KNEW HE WASNT SUPPOSED TO,,EITHER........... So there goes your carrying a knife defense.......RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW. He was 100% WRONG for having a knife with him.......if security was checking bags at that event,,,YOU CAN BET YOUR ASS HE WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ADMITTED IN WITH THAT KNIFE...........so,,game over for your defense
Very good article. I hope you don’t mind if I link an op-ed I’ve written about the case here, but I understand if you do - and if you subsequently delete it:
https://thequillandmusket.substack.com/p/the-karmelo-anthony-case?r=4xypjp
It’s extremely glaring to me that in your article you refer to Anthony as a man as opposed to a 17 year old minor like Metcalf. History has repeatedly referee to, spoken of, and envisioned black boys as older and more dangerous than they’ve are especially in comparison to their white counterparts.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna80455
I pray for a favor judicial process and for both families.
If a 17 year old is man enough to carry a knife and man enough to stab someone to death, they should be treated like a man in court.
It is telling that your concern lies not with the actions that led to a young man’s death, but with the choice to use the word “man.”
To argue that referring to a 17-year-old as a man is inherently racially biased assumes that language must always defer to narrative, not truth. But age is not the sole determinant of manhood—actions, responsibilities, and consequences often speak louder. When someone engages in behavior that carries lethal consequences, society does not—and should not—infantilize that person because it is politically fashionable to do so.
Sure, the idea that black males are routinely “aged up” in public discourse is potentially a legitimate historical concern. It has roots in the dehumanizing propaganda of Jim Crow, in the “superpredator” myth of the 1990s, and in media failures like the Central Park Five. These were real injustices. But invoking that history as a blanket explanation for every modern incident—especially without grappling with the facts of a case—collapses moral discernment into grievance.
You claim to pray for a fair judicial process, but what you are actually doing is sleight of hand—transforming a clear and violent act, already supported by publicly available facts, into moral theater. This is not a call for justice. It is narrative substitution. It is linguistic activism crafted not to illuminate truth, but to manufacture pity and obscure responsibility.
Racial bias must be exposed where it exists, but it must never be used as a universal solvent to dissolve individual responsibility. If we are to affirm that young black men are more than stereotypes, we must also affirm their capacity for moral choice. That is what it means to treat someone as fully human. To do otherwise—to suggest that black youth cannot be held to the same standards of discernment, judgment, and consequence—is not empathy. It is paternalism. It is the quiet racism of diminished expectations cloaked in the language of advocacy.
And let's not confuse systemic data with individual justice. The statistics around black youth incarceration, trauma, and misperception—while concerning and worthy of public debate—do not preclude the need to assess specific situations based on specific facts. Justice is not statistical. It is particular. It is case by case. The danger is not in discussing racial bias. The danger is in allowing that discussion to replace the truth when truth becomes inconvenient.
Real justice is not advanced by softening language to suit sensitivities, but by confronting hard truths with moral clarity—treating individuals, regardless of race, as beings of both dignity and consequence. When narrative is elevated above fact, and symbolism above substance, we do not pursue justice—we obscure it. In doing so, we risk replacing accountability with theater: a stage where evidence is optional, responsibility is deflected, and all that remains is a hashtag, a script, and the illusion of virtue. That is not justice. That is propaganda with better lighting.
Karmelo Anthony is a minor. He will live with the memory of killing another human being for the rest of his life.
And yes, adults may behave foolishly and squander defense money, but Karmelo is not to be punished for adults' foolishness.
It is my hope that there are some adults with patience who will be able to help Karmelo to avoid further devastation.
You are the exact juror a defense attorney looks for in a high profile murder case. And if it is a black on white murder the attorney has the media on his side to assure he wins the case.
The next time you hear of a gang initiation murder, you can feel solace in the fact the killer will have to live with the memory.
A personal attack is no substitute for argument.
This was not a personal attack, it was an accurate recap of the situation and your attitudes role in it.
If the victim was your son would you feel the same? You have adopted the murderer as you "son" ,based on your outlook.
You had a choice, you choose poorly
I haven't seen regret from Karmelo Anthony in any of the reports I've read. Tell me why you think he'll "live with the memory of killing another human being". My take on his reported demeanor is that he moved and acted in a cold, calculated manner, regardless of the "adults' foolishness" in spending the GoFundMe monies.
I recently read a series of books by John Douglas, a retired FB Special Agent that was instrumental in laying the groundwork for criminal profiling. He has studied hundreds of the worst of the worst criminals. He found that they have no problem living with the knowledge they killed another human, and this goes for those that commit their first murder as a minor. The commonality is the belief they had to do it because the person was interfering with their ability to get what they wanted at that moment. Sometimes the murders happen because it gives them a sense of having the power of life and death over others. If the victim was murdered, it is no big deal, the victim was too weak and did not deserve to live.
I just read the police report on the incident. Anthony had grabbed Metcalf's, opened in and reached inside. Metcalf took exception to this and Anthony responded touch me and see what happens. He then pulled the knife out of his bag and stabbed Metcalf.
Anthony was the aggressor. How many of you would be okay if someone else grabbed your bag and was going through it? Most would object strongly and say cut it out and give back my property. Anthony was not going to stop unless someone used force against him. Anthony made that clear when he stabbed Metcalf because Metcalf demanded that Anthony leave his personal stuff alone.
I have worked in a high school with a student population of over 50% living in one of the worst gang infested areas of the city. Violence was so bad, the police would not enter unless there were a minimum of 20 officers going in with the SWAT team. When Law Enforcement went in, there was a high probability that they would be shot at.
Many of these students had no concept of personal property. If they saw something they wanted, they took it. If you resisted, they would go get some friends and return to take it while giving you a lesson why it was unwise to resist in the first place. All too often the victim was seriously injured resulting in life altering injuries that will be with them the rest of their lives or were brutally beaten to death.
Numerous times these students would attempt to go through my backpack to take whatever they wanted. A few would not stop after I caught them and so I forcibly told it back. Had I not, and they left the room with it, the administration had no way and no interest in seeing my property returned to me. I was blamed for leaving it somewhere where they found it. I had it locked up in a cabinet but the locks the school used were cheap and easily defeated.
These kids carried knives and guns because they were planning to use those weapons against anyone that gets in their way.
As usual with most school districts today, they will ignore the question of why he had a knife to start with. Every high school student knows being caught with a gun or knife creates serious problems and can expect to be arrested and expelled.
When the arresting officer told Anthony that he was under arrest for allegedly stabbing Metcalf, Anthony stated that there was nothing alleged about it, he stabbed him. He then asked the officer if Metcalf was doing well. Upon learning that Metcalf died, he asked the officer if stabbing Metcalf could be considered self-defense because Metcalf had touched him.
Anthony's family are blaming Metcalf because he did not just let Anthony take the bag and are blaming the school for not canceling the track meet due to rain. Children should not be running in the rain and for their safety, the meet should have been cancelled. Had it been cancelled, Anthony would not have had the opportunity to stab Metcalf.
I ran track and cross-country in high school. Meets do not get canceled due to rain. It is an outdoor sport and you deal with the weather. Every competitor faces the same conditions so they are affected equally.
Anthony has no problem living with the fact he murdered another human. He will boast about it because it gives him street cred. He will be looked up to be his peers on the street.
Under the teaching conditions you describe, how is education achieved? It seems impossible.
It rarely is achieved. A significant number of my students were illiterate. I had some seniors who just could not read, let alone write a complete sentence.
The state and federal government's policies promote this. If your graduation rate is below what is mandated, you lose funding. If state test scores are not where they should be, you lose funding. If suspension and expulsion rates are different between the different ethnic groups, then you lose funding.
At the school I was at, the suspension and expulsion rates were triple for the black and hispanic students compared to white and asian students. The Federal Office of Civil rights investigated and concluded our disciplinary policies were biased against black and hispanic students.
These polices were well defined, if you do A, the consequences is B. Every offense got the same exact consequence. If you were involved in two fights in a year or three over the 4 years of high school, you were expelled. If you had a 5th offense of bringing drugs to school, you were expelled. Bring a gun to school, you were expelled.
The majority of our black and hispanic students lived in the large gang infested area. They were all poor and living in subsidized housing. The majority of adults did not work, they were drug dealers and thieves (they stole to resell). If you are born into a 5th generation gang family where no adult has a legitimate job, you learn that this behavior is normal. You are encouraged to participate and if you do not, you are physically assaulted or worse. If you do not join the gang, through the gang initiation process, you will be physically assaulted nearly every day.
I have had a handful of students get out of the life because they took full advantage of every educational opportunity they had and upon graduation, left for college far from home and cut all ties. There is lots of scholarship money for these students. The school works with these students to ensure that no person in their home life knows where they are going to college. The student uses the school address for everything and the counselor then gives their mail to them in the office.
The result of punitive policies for students not succeeding has the opposite of its intended effect. Schools push hard for teachers to lower their standards. This is why many are pushing for the policy of a minimum grade of 50% for every assignment and test, even if the student did not do the work. We do not want them to dig a hole so deep they cannot get out. At the same time they are pushing to lower the D- grade to 50%. Now, everyone passes and graduates.
I refused to play the game. In my state, teachers are protected by the education code that states the teacher is the only one that determines the grade. No administrator can overrule a teacher's grade. I had two administrators change grades for some of my students. When I caught them, I reported it to the registrar who filed a report with the district and the state. The administrators were let go within a month.
I have the evidence because I print out my grades from the electronic grade book and I keep a separate grade book on my personal computer, that is not provided by the district. That way they cannot access my computer.
Every time there is School reform, it waters down the curriculum and results in lowering the standards. Sometimes they raise the standards but then blame the schools for not meeting them.
In my state, math is a great example. All freshmen are required to take Algebra, even if they are not ready for it. Schools cannot offer remedial math courses for those students who do not have the math skills to do algebra. The teacher has to use scaffolding to develop an individual lesson plan for each student so they, in theory, will learn all they need to in order to be successful in algebra. Of course it does not work. How are you going to do that for 180 students? The students that fail have a history of not doing school going back to elementary school. We cannot retain them because that shows racial bias. By the time they are Seniors and still have not passed math, they are placed in credit recovery. They do all the work on a computer, including taking tests, and they get as many tries to pass the test as needed. I have seen the program grade a student's test and then every question that was answered correctly was taken out of the repeat test. This continues until the student answered correctly the number they need to in order to pass. On a multiple choice test with 4 choices, students can get a passing grade by the third or fourth retake. Their wrong answers are always greyed out on the retake so you just check another answer until you get it right.
To make up for the loss of money due to poor math scores, the district applies for state and federal grants to get money to improve math education. They get many times more the funds than the state took away. Teachers are paid well to work these programs after school. Some teachers can double their salary doing this. I know one teacher that did this for a couple of years and then went down and purchased a $100,000 Mercedes with cash, and this was 10 years ago. It had everything. Teachers like me are still driving a 30 year old vehicle that we keep running.
The Department of Education is a scam for handing out money to schools who are failing so they can continue to fail. Students and staff are now being financially rewarded for failing. I want the department of education to be abolished. This will put it all on the states and some states will do it right and the others will continue on the current downward spiral. Then it will be obvious which states are doing education right.
I have learned that if you keep the bar high and demonstrate to students they can reach it and how to reach it, then many will perform at higher standards. Those that do not will continue to fail like they have done their entire life. The few who follow through learn they can do school and their self-worth increases and the are put on the path to being successful in life.