Karmelo Anthony and Austin Metcalf

Karmelo Anthony was convicted by a jury of the stabbing murder of Austin Metcalf at a Texas track meet.

Anthony’s family members, who collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in social media campaigns, maintain he was defending himself when he killed Metcalf, 17, in April 2025. And they say the jury, which included multiple minorities, was racist, and they insist the trial was unfair.

Anthony had gone into a rival team’s tent and Metcalf repeatedly asked him to leave. In the resulting altercation Anthony pulled a knife and stabbed Metcalf in the chest. He was sentenced by the jury to 35 years in prison.

But now an employee at self-described “historically black” Howard University is insisting that the fault for Austin’s death rests not with his convicted murderer, but with his father.

A report at Fox News explains how Stacey Patton, a teacher at Howard’s “School of Communications,” wrote on Substack about her own verdict in the case, convicting without evidence Jeff Metcalf of bad parenting.

She headlined her opinion, “Dear Jeff Metcalf: Your Son Is Dead Because You Failed to Teach Him That Black Boys Have Boundaries.”

She ranted, “YOU failed to teach your boy that black children have boundaries. YOU failed teach humility, restraint, or the sacred fact that another person’s body is not your jurisdiction. YOU failed to teach him that another child’s space is not a challenge to be conquered. YOU failed to teach him that ‘community’ does not mean white boys get to decide who belongs and who does not.”

Fox reported the trial of Anthony, now 19, “has become a flashpoint in broader debates about race, with Anthony’s supporters arguing he has been treated differently because he is black, while critics have rejected efforts to make the murder of Metcalf, a white teenager, about race.”

In fact, some of the witnesses who testified against Anthony were blacks.

Patton scolded, “YOU obviously failed to teach your son that touching, confronting, crowding, testing, or policing another person can have consequences. And YOU failed to teach him that the same world that cheers white boys for being bold and aggressive will not always be there to save them when they mistake somebody else’s restraint for permission.”

She unleashed on the senior Metcalf for saying, in a victim statement in court, that Anthony failed his own parents in his decision to do murder.

“It is easier to stand in a courtroom and call Karmelo Anthony a failure than it is to admit that Austin’s death did not begin with the knife. It began with every lesson that told your son that he had the right to approach, challenge, and cross a boundary. It began with every adult who smiled at white boy entitlement and called it leadership. It began with every cultural script that taught him black boys are the ones to be feared, but never taught him that black boys might also be afraid.”

She also blasted the father for saying that the convicted murderer does not “belong in this community.”

“It is the language of somebody who believes he has the authority to decide who gets to stay, who must disappear, and whose presence contaminates the social order. Like father, like son. Your words landed on top of centuries of black children being told they do not belong in white schools, neighborhoods, playgrounds, pools, churches, white juries, white imaginations, and white definitions of innocence. They landed on top of every black boy this country has turned into a threat before he ever had a chance to be a child.”

She then expanded her reach: “A whole country is using the tragedy to rehearse the same old script about black guilt and white innocence.”

To Fox, Patton declined to answer questions, the report said.

“Run along and feed your propaganda machine,” she told the network. “I’m sure it’s hungry for another black woman’s words to mutilate.”

Meanwhile, extremists in Congress are demanding that the case be reopened.

Fox reported, “House Democrats are raising concerns about how race and jury selection may have impacted the guilty verdict in the Karmelo Anthony case, with several arguing the verdict highlights the racism they believe exists in the criminal justice system.

“A travesty, two lives ruined, and what struck me most is that you had an all-white jury,” Rep. Christian Menefee, D-Texas, said when asked his thoughts on the guilty verdict. “You had preemptive strikes that were used in order to achieve an all-white jury.”

The report pointed out that among the 18 jurors and alternatives, six are minorities.

The report noted, “Additionally, four black men testified in defense of Metcalf, saying Anthony was not provoked in any way to justify stabbing the 17-year-old.”

Bob Unruh

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is currently a news editor for the WND News Center, and also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially. Read more of Bob Unruh's articles here.