Jasmine Crockett did not back away from her defense of Karmelo Anthony after his murder conviction, instead she turned the sentence into an indictment of the justice system.
Speaking to TMZ, the former Texas congresswoman cast Anthony’s conviction as proof that race shaped the outcome after a jury sentenced the 19-year-old to 35 years in prison for killing 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at a high school track meet.
The case centered on Anthony, a black teenager, and Metcalf, a white student who died after being stabbed during a confrontation under a tent at the April 2025 meet.
Crockett portrayed Anthony as a teenager who reacted out of fear and argued the punishment showed a lack of mercy.
“Thirty-five years for a kid who decided to go under a tent that was not his team’s tent as it was raining, and simply didn’t want to be put out in the rain by some random kid that he didn’t know who was larger than him?” Crockett commented about the sentence.
Jasmine Crockett tells @jacob_wass there was one major factor in the Karmelo Anthony verdict. pic.twitter.com/XYX5bNJagz
— TMZ (@TMZ) June 10, 2026
“Listen, a lot of people don’t know what it is to live as a black person in this country,” she added. “I know that our systems are broken. And what we saw with that verdict is the evidence of a broken system.”
For Crockett, the 35-year sentence became the clearest evidence that the jury saw Anthony through a racial lens.
She also accused critics of withholding from Anthony the kind of benefit of the doubt she said police officers often receive after shooting unarmed black people.
🗳️Turning Point PAC is deploying the largest ballot-chasing operation in U.S. History to secure key battleground states. 🗳️ Keep our grassroots army in the field and protect future victories! ➡️➡️➡️ DONATE TODAY!!! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
The self-defense claim hinged partly on the size difference between the teens, with Anthony’s lawyers pointing out that Metcalf was taller and about 80 pounds heavier.
Crockett leaned into that argument while minimizing the mechanics of the fatal wound, referring to the knife as a “tool” and saying Anthony only struck once.
“It’s my understanding that Karmelo ended up stabbing, puncturing, I don’t know what this tool was they talk about, knife or some refer to it as a tool,” she claimed.
“Um, he ended up hitting Austin one time, and it was about where he hit him. One time. Two inches. This wasn’t someone who said, ‘Hey, let me stab you five, six, seven times.’”
She also suggested the confrontation was being distorted. Crockett said Anthony was punished after he “decided to go under a tent that was not his team’s tent as it was raining.”
Pressed on why a knife was at a high school track meet at all, Crockett shifted the comparison to firearms at protests.
“Yeah, people may say that. But walk a day in my shoes and then respond, because we, as black folks, say “Why is it that people need long arm guns when we are going out and having a First Amendment protest?” she questioned. “But people say that’s their right, they’re allowed to do that.”
Crockett argued that carrying the knife was not illegal, even if it may have violated school rules.
“It may have been prohibited by school rules, which he wasn’t at his school at the time, but it definitely wasn’t against the law,” she remarked.
She then framed Anthony as a scared teenager who deserved a lesser charge. “The fact that there was little to no mercy seen, or humanity seen, when this black boy said that, ‘I was scared.’ Or the fact that honestly anybody else who did something with such a small object… that they wouldn’t even say, ‘Well, maybe this was more so something that looked like manslaughter,” she continued.
Asked directly whether race influenced the verdict, Crockett did not hesitate. “Oh my God, I know Collin County, so absolutely,” she stated. “And unfortunately that was not the county for a black boy.”
She also claimed a white teenager accused of the same act against a black teen would have been treated differently.
“I would guarantee you, it wouldn’t have happened,” Crockett claimed.
“I don’t even know if he would have been convicted, because if a white boy would have said they were afraid of a black boy, something tells me that that jury that didn’t have any black people on it, they would have believed him in his fear.”
The TMZ interview was not the first time Crockett had tried to reframe the physical threat Anthony claimed he faced.
On her show “Clock It with Crockett,” she argued that Metcalf’s hands, as a football player, could be considered lethal weapons.
She also speculated about the size of the knife used in the killing, even though images had not been publicly released.
“Wait a minute, it was this?” she said, measuring an inch with her fingers.“Was it a switch? I don’t know what he had.”
Rep. Crockett (D) says the knife used to kill Metcalf "was not a deadly weapon" pic.twitter.com/evYfecEhqW
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) June 10, 2026
After a guest suggested the knife may have been a “multi-tool” or Swiss Army Knife-style weapon, Crockett said its size could have been used to challenge whether it was deadly.
“Yeah, like with the little scissors and everything and whatever. So it was small,” Crockett continued. “I would have argued by the size of it alone that it wasn’t a deadly weapon, if it was one of the little ones. But I don’t know.”
Trial testimony cut against Crockett’s framing, with 18-year-old witness Eddie Parra describing Anthony as the one escalating the encounter.
Parra said Anthony became aggressive after being confronted and dared Metcalf to “touch me.”
Witnesses said Anthony warned Metcalf that “you’re going to have to move me” while reaching inside his bag, signaling he had a weapon.
After Metcalf shoved him, witnesses said Anthony drew the knife and drove it into the teen’s chest.
Crockett also suggested black women who have black sons live with a fear the Metcalf family likely never had to experience.
Rep. Crockett: "Black women live in agony every day that I promise the Metcalfs had never lived through" pic.twitter.com/GVielzMf51
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) June 10, 2026
“Black women especially black women who have black male children live in fear and agony every single day,” she claimed. “A fear and agony that I promise you the Metcalfs probably never spend a day living that way.”
“We’re gonna have to have just some real conversations about race in this country,” she went on, “but also just, like, what are we going to do to protect ourselves.”
In court, Jeff Metcalf described a loss that reached far beyond the moment his son died. Metcalf’s father told the court his family had been “robbed” of watching Austin grow up.
He described the rage and grief that followed his son’s murder, saying Austin’s death “didn’t just break my heart” but destroyed his “sense of safety” and “faith in people.”
Race had shadowed the case long before Crockett’s TMZ comments, especially after supporters pointed to the makeup of the jury.
No black jurors were seated; the panel was largely white, with Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern and Indian members also included.
The jury deliberated for less than four hours before finding Anthony guilty. Less than a day after sentencing, Anthony’s legal team moved to appeal.
Crockett lost the Democratic nomination for Texas’ U.S. Senate race to state Rep. James Talarico, who is now running against Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
That’s the first thing this A-Hole does when a black person is convicted for a crime they have committed.
She questions whether or not the knife was a deadly weapon? DUH!–It killed Metcalf! I question the IQ and morality of the whole district that voted for this dingbat. They’re now trying to replace her with Talarico, a totally dishonest guy who has flip-flopped on nearly every idiocy he has promoted in the past. Why should he be trusted?