The number of murders in the U.S. has been dropping in the years since the dramatic increase in the wake of George Floyd’s death and the pandemic. That’s good news, obviously. The bad news is that murder has been a thing since Genesis 4, and that’s unlikely to change.
Some murders grab national attention. For millions, the death of George Floyd fit that description, though we believe Derek Chauvin was wrongly convicted for a death that wasn’t a murder. The Leftmedia and left-wing race-hustlers are responsible for elevating Floyd’s death to the level of martyrdom for political reasons. They did likewise with other black men, like Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.
When the media creates such a narrative and elevates some deaths above others in order to vilify white people and police, there is a natural contrary reaction. What about the murders that disprove the narrative? That reaction isn’t new, in part because legacy media outlets deliberately downplay or ignore the murders of white people at the hands of blacks.
In 2007, our Mark Alexander wrote about the gruesome murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom at the hands of four black perpetrators. Those murders got virtually no national attention despite their shocking nature. Alexander and others in our crew have noted the fact that blacks commit more murder — particularly among their own demographic — than other racial groups. Those statistics are brought about by many cultural factors, not least of which is the absence of fathers. The media rarely report such murders.
That’s a long way to go about introducing the death of Austin Metcalf, a white 17-year-old high school football star, last week. According to the arrest warrant, during an altercation at a track meet, Metcalf told 17-year-old Karmelo Anthony, who is black and attends a different school, that he was in the wrong tent. Anthony told Metcalf, “Touch me and see what happens,” after which Metcalf did touch either Anthony or his bag. Anthony pulled a knife and stabbed Metcalf in the heart. Metcalf died in the arms of his twin brother, Hunter.
“I already forgive this person,” said Austin’s dad, Jeff. “God takes care of things. God is going to take care of me. God is going to take care of my family.” The family has begun raising a substantial sum on GoFundMe.
“I’m not alleged,” Anthony reportedly told the responding officer. “I did it.” Yet he also claimed, “I was protecting myself. He put his hands on me.” Anthony’s father, Andrew, also insists, “He was not the aggressor. He was not the one who started it.” Because raising funds for murder suspects violates GoFundMe’s terms of service, his family turned to another (Christian) fundraiser site, GiveSendGo, to raise money.
Anthony has been charged with first-degree murder, though he is pleading self-defense.
This story is tragic and shouldn’t have happened at all, but here we are. I hope the trial yields the whole truth and that, whatever happened, jurors reach a just conclusion. All we know so far is what eyewitness testimony has been reported and recorded in the police report. Based on those things, it doesn’t look good for Anthony.
As The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh observes:
Of course, there hasn’t yet been a trial in this case. Karmelo Anthony, like everyone else accused of a crime in this country, enjoys the legal presumption of innocence under our Constitution. At the same time, reasonable people can look at these facts and come to one obvious conclusion, which is this: Unless the police and all of the witnesses are engaging in the single most organized conspiracy to frame a criminal defendant that’s ever been undertaken in the history of this country, for no apparent reason, then there was clearly no justification for Karmelo Anthony to kill Austin Metcalf. There was no reason for him to bring a deadly weapon to a track meet in the first place, much less use that weapon to execute an unarmed teenager, and then attempt to hide evidence. In other words, any defense of Anthony must rely on something other than the facts.
Unfortunately, this story has yielded an online battle that’s also ugly. Because George Floyd likely did die of fentanyl, meth, and other medical issues unrelated to Derek Chauvin’s restraint, there’s a conspiracy floating around that Metcalf actually died of a similar drug overdose. Another said he had repeatedly beaten Anthony in “mutual combat.” Police specifically rebutted those theories.
Others cut to the chase and effectively argue that Metcalf had it coming because he was what online commenters called a “white supremacist” who acted like it was still “the Jim Crow era.” Some compare Anthony to Kyle Rittenhouse and Daniel Penny, both of whom were acquitted for the self-defense deaths of violent assailants. Their argument, however, is that Rittenhouse and Penny were actually guilty, while Anthony is not.
Worse, this is part of a trend on the Left that is rationalizing and justifying the murder of certain people.
When Luigi Mangione was arrested for the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December, the Left erupted in support for Mangione. GoFundMe removed his donation page, but — wait for it — GiveSendGo still hosts one, which as of this writing has raised well over $800,000. Mangione has become a hero to deranged psychopaths on the Left.
It is disturbingly widespread, too. Twice over the summer, a lunatic tried to assassinate Donald Trump. The first attempt came within an inch of taking his life. Normally, that would unify a country. Sadly, in this case, just the opposite happened. A new study found that 55% of self-identified leftists think it would be at least “somewhat justified” to kill Trump.
It may be shocking to see this kind of response to murderous violence, but it shouldn’t be. The Jacobins in 1790s revolutionary France were bloodthirsty, as were the Bolsheviks in Russia more than a century later. When your belief system is predicated on the oppressor/oppressed scale, any response is at least “somewhat justified.” Add in a dash of race, and the hucksters set to work stoking division and hatred, which eventually yields more violence and more dead people.
