Closing arguments set in Texas trial of teen charged in fatal stabbing at a school track meet

MCKINNEY, Texas (AP) — Closing arguments were set for Tuesday in the trial of a Texas teenager charged with fatally stabbing a 17-year-old track athlete at a high school meet during a confrontation that students said rapidly escalated in the stadium’s bleachers.

Karmelo Anthony, now 19, did not testify in his own defense over the killing of Austin Metcalf, whose death stunned a booming Dallas suburb where the two students attended different schools.

If convicted, Anthony faces up to life in prison.

Over the course of the nearly weeklong trial, Anthony’s attorneys have sought to convince jurors that Anthony was forced to defend himself under a tent belonging to the track team of Frisco Memorial High School, where Metcalf was in his junior year. Several schools were competing at a rainy track meet, and Metcalf and others had repeatedly told Anthony to leave, witnesses testified, leading to an escalating confrontation.

Witnesses at trial who were in the tent described Anthony as the aggressor. According to the arrest report, Anthony at one point told Metcalf: “Touch me and see what happens.”

Several students told jurors that Metcalf then pushed Anthony, who then pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the chest.

Prosecutors called the stabbing an unjustified attack and not a case of self-defense.

Testimony at the trial leaned heavily on the recollections of teenagers who described being shocked at the tragedy at a community sports event. Many questions centered on team culture at track meets and the confrontation in the tent.

One teammate told jurors that Anthony was “distraught” after the stabbing. Judge John Roach Jr. ordered that the names of teenage witnesses not be made public.

“I was hearing him say, ‘I told him not to touch me,’” the teenager said.

Vincent Hooper, an area track coach who approached Anthony, asked him what had happened. Anthony replied that he had stabbed someone who had “put his hands on me,” Hooper recalled last week.

The death last year quickly drew wide attention, in part because of social media posts that amplified the case in racial terms. Anthony is Black; Metcalf was white.

After the stabbing, Jeff Metcalf, Austin’s father, condemned those who seized on the race of the teens. Prosecutors also opened the trial by saying race had nothing to do with the case.