Frisco, Texas is located in suburban Dallas. I have been there. It isn’t a dangerous environment.
But it turned out to be a deadly environment for 17-year-old Austin Metcalf, when he encountered another 17-year-old, Karmelo Anthony, at a high school track meet.
After a brief altercation over a seat in the bleachers, Karmelo Anthony pulled a knife and stabbed Metcalf to death.
The racial dynamics of this case are attracting attention. Anthony, the killer, is black. The late Austin Metcalf was white. The mainstream media has thus far shown little interest in Metcalf’s murder. Nor is it likely that Austin Metcalf will be transformed into a national martyr, in the way Trayvon Martin was a decade ago.
Some say that this is because the crime “does not fit the narrative”. There is no indication, so far, that race was a factor in the slaying. (Anthony and Metcalf were athletes from rival schools.) A cynic, however, could not help wondering if CNN and MSNBC would have given this crime more attention had the races of the killer and the victim been reversed. (At any rate, the mainstream media’s consistent refusal to cover crimes involving black perpetrators and white victims only fuels such cynicism.)
But questions of racial politics aside, there are some conclusions that can be drawn. Karmelo Anthony’s father, Andrew Anthony, told reporters that his son is a “good kid”. Because “good kids” stab other kids to death all the time, perhaps?
I have not been a 17-year-old boy since 1985, about 40 years now. But some rules of thumb transcend the generations. A “good kid” who takes bladed weapons to high school track meets is a conceptual oxymoron. In my experience, good kids usually don’t see the need to carry deadly weapons to school athletic events.
Similarly, a kid who immediately pulls a knife and stabs another over a dispute about a seat in the bleachers was probably never on his way to becoming Citizen of the Year. If Karmelo Anthony is a contemporary example of a “good kid”, may the Almighty save us all from the truly bad ones.
-ET