A Democratic congresswoman has sparked fierce backlash after suggesting Karmelo Anthony was justified in stabbing Austin Metcalf to death and appearing to dismiss the grief of Metcalf’s family by claiming Black mothers live in a fear the Metcalfs “probably never spend a day living.”
Texas lawmaker Jasmine Crockett, 45, a former public defender, livestreamed an episode of her online show Clock It with Crockett in the hours after Anthony was sentenced to 35 years in prison on Tuesday for the April 2025 killing of Metcalf, 17, at a high school track meet in Frisco, Texas.
Crockett referenced the defence team’s argument that Metcalf outweighed Anthony by approximately 80 pounds and was taller than his killer, using it to justify the use of a knife. “If a 300 pound man is beating me, I’m not limited to fist,” she said. “I’m telling you right now, if you’re twice my weight, I don’t believe I am going to survive.” She also invoked the death of George Floyd, saying: “If you look at George Floyd, George Floyd died and they never took out a weapon. So this idea that you can’t die is wild.” She went further, suggesting that the hands of a football player — which Metcalf was — could be considered lethal weapons.
On the knife Anthony used to stab Metcalf once in the chest — the blade piercing his breastbone and puncturing the right side of his heart, killing him — Crockett said she would have argued by its size alone that it was not a deadly weapon, despite never having seen it. “But I don’t know,” she added.
Toward the end of the near two-hour broadcast, Crockett appeared to diminish the suffering of the Metcalf family. “Black women, especially Black women who have Black male children, live in fear and agony every single day,” she said. “A fear and agony that I promise you the Metcalfs probably never spend a day living that way.”
The comments came just hours after Metcalf’s mother Meghan had told the court in a victim impact statement: “He was taken from us just as he was starting to really live. You may have just been given a sentence of 35 years behind bars but you can consider yourself lucky because I’ve been sentenced to a lifetime without my son.” His father Jeff described “unfiltered rage” and said Austin’s murder had not just broken his heart but destroyed his “sense of safety” and “faith in people.”
Anthony sobbed throughout Tuesday’s sentencing and his family wept in the gallery as the 35-year term was announced, prompting an audible gasp in the courtroom. His mother had begged jurors to show him mercy before the sentence was handed down. The case has divided America along racial lines since the stabbing, with Metcalf being white and Anthony Black. Prosecutors argued successfully that Anthony had provoked the confrontation and could not claim self-defence for fatally stabbing a fellow teenager in response to being pushed.
