A man involved in a viral confrontation outside the courthouse where Karmelo Anthony was convicted of murdering 17-year-old Austin Metcalf has been arrested, one of at least two people taken into custody as tensions boiled over following the verdict in one of the most racially charged trials in America this year.
Anthony, now 19, was found guilty of murder on Tuesday by a 12-person Collin County jury, which deliberated for approximately two hours and 20 minutes before rejecting his claim of self-defence in the fatal stabbing of Metcalf at a Frisco track meet in April 2025. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison and will be eligible for parole after serving half that term.
Both arrests outside the Collin County Courthouse in McKinney took place shortly after sentencing was announced. The Collin County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to Fox News Digital that Jerome Winston Parker, the man at the centre of a viral clash with an Austin Metcalf supporter earlier in the week, was arrested on an outstanding warrant for unlawful carrying of a weapon. The charge stemmed from an alleged incident in the courthouse parking lot on 6 June, three days before the verdict, during what police described as “activities related to trial proceedings.”
The second man arrested was identified as Sholdon Daniels, a Republican nominee for Congress in Texas’s 30th Congressional District. Footage recorded by FOX 4 showed Daniels, wearing a pink tie and suspenders, being taken into custody outside the courthouse in connection with an alleged assault. He was subsequently charged with public intoxication and remains in jail on a $500 bond, according to jail records obtained by Fox News Digital. Daniels, a veteran and attorney according to his campaign website, had posted a video to X shortly before the incident wearing the same outfit, in which he condemned Anthony’s actions and argued that race had played a central role in the case. “I practice law in Collin County, Texas,” 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.”
The Collin County Sheriff’s Department confirmed both men were booked into the county jail following the arrests.
Inside the courtroom, the case concluded with emotional victim impact statements from Metcalf’s family. Hunter Metcalf, Austin’s identical twin brother, addressed Anthony directly from the witness stand, calmly asking him to “please give me the respect and look at me.” Austin’s father, Jeff Metcalf, told Anthony “Don’t look down” as he delivered his own statement, and rejected suggestions that the case had been driven by race. “I said from Day 1 this was never about race,” he said. “It’s about right and wrong.” Speaking after the sentencing, free from the constraints of a previously imposed gag order, Jeff Metcalf said his family had endured sustained harassment and multiple dangerous “swatting” calls in the aftermath of his son’s death. “With a gag order, I can’t defend myself when people want to tear down my son’s memory,” he said. “That time is over.”
The trial, which centred on testimony from more than 20 prosecution witnesses describing a heated exchange after Anthony refused to leave a rival school’s team tent at the Frisco track meet, drew sustained national attention and large crowds of supporters from both sides who gathered outside the courthouse throughout proceedings, according to Deseret News and the Associated Press.
