Dozens gathered, two arrested near David Kuykendall Stadium, where a 17-year-old was fatally stabbed earlier this month.
By Chase Rogers and Marcela Rodrigues
Staff Writers
FRISCO — Bruce Carter had a message to deliver.
At a protest in the parking lot of David Kuykendall Stadium, Carter pulled out his phone and dialed Jeff Metcalf, the father whose 17-year-old son was fatally stabbed in the stadium’s bleachers weeks earlier — a case that has sparked racist discourse online and thrust two grieving families into the national spotlight.
Carter wanted Jake Lang to hear from Metcalf himself, after Lang came to Frisco from Florida to rally around the death of Metcalf’s son. Lang, a U.S. Senate hopeful, said Metcalf’s son was now a symbol of a “violent Black culture” being perpetrated against white America.
“You’re trying to create more race divide than bridging the gap,” Metcalf told Lang over speakerphone, addressing Lang and the protest held by his organization, Protect White Americans. “I do not condone anything you do,” the father continued, asking Lang to remove his son’s school portrait from the group’s website.
The rebuke from Metcalf — who confirmed to The News he was on the other side of the phone call — marked the father’s sharpest pushback yet against the racially-charged narratives that have proliferated online since the April 2 stabbing.
The day after his son’s death, he appeared on Fox News to urge the public to avoid speculation along racial lines. Austin Metcalf was white. The teenager facing a murder charge in connection to the stabbing, Karmelo Anthony, 17, is Black.
The father’s remarks come days after his home was “swatted” due to a false emergency call to law enforcement and after he was escorted out of a news conference where Anthony’s family spoke publicly about the case for the first time.
Carter and Metcalf met at the Thursday news conference, and Carter later decided to speak with Lang on Metcalf’s behalf at the protest. Carter is a Dallas entrepreneur who owns a public relations firm, according to his website. He has been active in local politics and has campaigned for President Donald Trump. In the past, he ran a group called Black Men for Bernie, referring to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont.
For more than an hour before the phone call, Lang stood atop a parked bus in the stadium lot, addressing a crowd of roughly two dozen. The vehicle was covered with images from American history, including a photo of Trump taken shortly after last year’s assassination attempt in Butler, Penn.
From his perch, Lang, who was accused of taking part in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, stood beside Philip Anderson, a Mesquite resident who was also arrested on multiple charges of breaching the U.S. Capitol on that day.
Lang and Anderson delivered speeches suggesting Black Americans are disproportionately violent toward white Americans because of what he called “white hate.” Lang is white. Anderson is Black.
Protesters voiced anger over Anthony’s release on bond, calling for him to be “put back in prison until trial.” Anthony had been initially held in Collin County jail on a $1 million bond, which was later lowered to $250,000 by the judge presiding over the case. His bond conditions require he wear an ankle monitor, remain on house arrest and be with an adult at all times.
Frisco police have not said that race played a role in the stabbing case, including the responding officers whose accounts were included in a police report obtained by The News.
Roughly two dozen counterprotesters stood away from the bus, with Frisco police forming a barrier between them and the group. Two people from the group were arrested, a police spokesperson confirmed in a statement.
Speculation about what happened at David Kuykendall Stadium on April 2 has intensified in the weeks afterward. Online fundraisers for the Metcalf and Anthony families have drawn hundreds of thousands of dollars. Online disinformation impersonating the Frisco police chief and posts targeting the judge presiding over Anthony’s case have become the subject of criminal investigations.
Police have said they are working with the families to ensure their safety as the case progresses. In recent weeks, both Jeff Metcalf and Austin’s mother, Meghan Metcalf, were targeted in separate “swatting” calls at their homes.
Anthony’s parents, Kala Hayes and Andrew Anthony, stood before a row of television cameras on Thursday — their first public appearance to speak on their son’s case — to confront misinformation circulating about their family and urge the public to allow their son due process under the law. Jeff Metcalf showed up at the news conference but was asked to leave by Dallas police.
Two people at Saturday’s protest were arrested, Officer Grant Cottingham, a Frisco police spokesperson, said in a statement. One man was pepper-sprayed by one of the arrestees but declined treatment, the statement said. No other injuries were reported.
The charges the two arrested would face were pending Saturday afternoon, Cottingham said. He declined to provide additional information, directing reporters to file an open records request under the Texas Public Information Act. The News’ requests were pending Saturday afternoon.
Dozens of police officers were present at the protest.
In a post on X Friday, Lang said Frisco police were spending more than $50,000 in overtime to “ensure a safe protest.”
The dollar amount provided to Lang was a “rough estimate,” Cottingham said in a statement to The News.
“As each event is different, the amount spent to keep them safe varies,” he said.
Lang did not stand trial for the charges related to Jan. 6, and was pardoned earlier this year by Trump while awaiting prosecution. He is now running to fill the Florida Senate seat vacated by Marco Rubio after he was appointed U.S. Secretary of State. Anderson, a Mesquite resident, was also arrested on multiple charges related to the Capitol attack. His case was later dismissed.
During Metcalf and Lang’s short exchange, Carter held his phone up.
Lang asked Metcalf whether he would stand beside him at a news conference or agree to a one-on-one interview to “talk about this issue that is larger than” his son, whom Lang suggested would’ve been “one of our strongest voices if he was alive today.”
Metcalf condemned Lang, but Lang interrupted him mid-sentence. He and Anderson then chided the father, calling him “weak.”
Metcalf ended the call.
Staff writer Matt Kyle contributed to this report.
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
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