"We're Fighting the Wrong Battle!" Stephen A. Calls Out the Karmelo Anthony Debate

Austin fell onto Carmelo's knife trying to attack him because the knife is three and a half inches.The cut was only two.Loon, if I'm stabbing you, why am I going halfway with a knife blade that's only three and a half inches?You fell onto my knife.Regardless, Loon, do you really think those two black boys who fell on that white boy's knife?

Time out, bro.I can't do it.I got to get my haircut.My barber here fell on a knife.There ain't no human being on planet Earth out of 21 witnesses said that he fell on a knife.Carmelo Anthony's defense isn't arguing that he fell on a knife.

Nobody's saying that the black, these black people cannot take accountability for nothing.Now the boy didn't fail on somebody knife.

Welcome to the special edition of straight shooter coming at you as I love to do at least twice a week over the airways of YouTube.Of course, of course, you know, my POTUS show is every Wednesday night from six to 8 PM.He used to spend the time over the airways of Sirius XM POTUS radio.Um, that was officer Tatum.responding to Dr. Umar Johnson, who was talking about what transpired with the whole Carmelo Anthony situation.You know, the kid, he was 17 at the time.

He's 19 now.He was recently convicted of first degree murder based off of, you know, because in April of 2025, he fatally stabbed a fellow high school student.high school athlete Austin Metcalf in the chest during an altercation at a track meet in Frisco, Texas.A jury convicted Anthony of murder on June 9th and 10th of this year, rejecting his self -defense claim and sentenced him to 35 years in prison.Now, as we all know, I definitely had my reservations about that sentencing.I remember the case involving Case and Allison, who in May of 2022 was also a Texas high school student and fatally stabbed

a classmate, Joe Ramirez, during a confrontation in a Belton High School bathroom.He ultimately was acquitted of murder and manslaughter, but convicted of criminally negligent homicide, where he was sentenced in June of 2025 to a maximum 10 years in prison.So he murdered somebody, he's getting 10 years.Carmelo Anthony murdered somebody, he's getting 35 years.And that discrepancy has a lot of people in an uproar and what have you.Apparently, one of those people is Dr. Umar Johnson.

Now, listen to what he said there.And let me state this.I respect him.I respect the man. I respect his intelligence officer Tatum.I'm not going to emulate you.I'm certainly not going to disrespect Dr. Umar Johnson.

I'm not going to call it and call him an idiot or question his intelligence.I will say, however, he's definitely out there with the stuff that he was saying.I heard no evidence of Carmelo Anthony or Austin Metcalf falling into a knife.I heard no evidence of that whatsoever.And there were 21 people, uh, you know, who was considered for the jury.You know, you had your grand jury testimony and all of this other stuff going on.

And it was 21 people that were talked to.There were witnesses that were in attendance.Nobody talked about Austin Metcalf falling into a knife.I don't know where that comes from.I don't know where that comes from.And obviously because of the, how severe the penalty was, 35 years in prison.

We're going to take into account history from an historical perspective, from a racist perspective, and we're not going to be uncomfortable with the discrepancy that exists between somebody like Case and Allison compared to a Carmelo Anthony.I got that part, but that doesn't give us a license to then turn around and to just come up with stuff that might've been as opposed to listening to the evidence that was actually disseminated and making a, a, a, a reaching a conclusion based off of that.Carmelo Anthony was quoted.as saying to Austin Metcalf, put your hands on me and find out what's going to happen.To be clear, he was in a tent because it was raining outside and attract me.And he was in a visiting team's tent, not his own.

And Austin Metcalf was one of the people that walked up to him and said, yo man, you need to go to your own spot.You don't need to be up in here.And according to witnesses and Carmelo Anthony himself, he said, put your hands on me and see what's going to happen.according to a coach in the aftermath of the incident.He walked up to Carmelo Anthony and asked him what happened to Carmelo.Anthony said, Hey, he put his hands on me.

So I stabbed him.So he told you what he was going to do before he did it.Then he ended up doing it.And now we're hearing all of these conspiracy theorists coming out here, talking about this stuff, ignoring the evidence.Now, again, officer Tatum, I'm not going to go your route because we can simply disagree.We don't have to engage in insulting anybody here.

You've got people that are emotionally invested because they see a system that they think is inequitable and unequal.And as a result, they react accordingly because yet another black kid is going down with a level of severity that isn't being shared by somebody who isn't black, but comes across as having committed the same crime.Now there's different circumstances.One involved a fight that both volunteered to confront one another about one was getting the better of the other.Ultimately, a stabbing took place, a killing occurred, and as a result of that killing, Allison got 10 years in prison because of criminally negligent homicide as opposed to manslaughter or murder.Carmelo Anthony.

went the route of self -defense through the advice of his lawyers and ultimately ended up being convicted of first degree murder.As far as I'm concerned, it wasn't a jury of his peers because there was nobody black on the jury.I got all of that.Nobody black on the jury.That's not a jury of your peers, even though there's no law that stipulates your peers means that your ethnicity has to be shared.I do understand that, but I think it would be nice if you're going to call it a jury of your peers, that it needs to be some people up there that look a little bit like you.

that shares your pigmentation, your hue, your ethnicity.I think that's fair in my opinion.But again, no laws were violated in terms of the makeup of that jury.Having said all of that, the reason why this point is relevant right now is because of a very uncomfortable truth.The uncomfortable truth is that once again, we find ourselves dropping the ball deal a little bit, dare I say.His lawyer, who was that going to be?

Did we do our due diligence?The makeup of the jury, did we do our due diligence?The charges, that were ultimately going to be filed against him, what he was indicted for, what he was going to be prosecuted for.Did we have the right people in place to make sure that wasn't putting Carmelo Anthony at a considerable advantage?Did we do all of those things?Or were we a bit late to the party in that regard?

And considering that one could argue that we were late to the party in that regard, for those who want to support Carmelo Anthony, who want to act like a crime wasn't committed, who want to act like he was completely provoked, instead of bringing up the fact that he had no business having a knife at a church,meet instead of acknowledging the fact that he was in no real perceived danger in terms of his life being threatened in terms of acknowledging the fact that under no circumstances, based on the evidence of what has happened, did it warrant him stabbing somebody in the chest?If we're going to sit up there and we're going to ignore those things, here's what we can't ignore.Here's what's unavoidable.People are going to bring this up to where's all this noise over what happened in Chicago.on Juneteenth.

What's the relevancy for that?The relevancy for that is that we're arguing and going off and expressing hell and fury over the conviction of a guy who acknowledged he admitted he committed the crime told the police is not alleged.I did it because he put his hands on me.So I did it.According to the reports, we've got people all over the place going off, talking about police officers, talking about the court system, talking about the inequity within our legal system, et cetera, et cetera.But, 39 people get shot on Juneteenth, six are killed, and we're not hearing anything.

Why is that?I bring up Juneteenth, ladies and gentlemen, to remind you what Juneteenth is.It's a U .S.holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States.That's what Juneteenth is.

Juneteenth, June 19th.Emancipation Proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln in January of 1863.This is what we're talking about.June 19th, 1865, two years ago, Union General, reading from here, Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas and announced that enslaved people in Texas were free.This date is what became known as Juneteenth.You know how as black folks, we sit up there and we talk about it's Malcolm X Boulevard, it's Martin Luther King Boulevard, and that's usually where violence takes place.

That's what they saying about Juneteenth right now.39 people shot, six killed.And what are we saying?You got more people arguing about Carmelo Anthony than this.And I'm not getting into, oh, you know what?It's black on black.

Wait a minute.White people kill white people.Hispanics kill Hispanics.The people you live with, the people you live amongst, the people you live around, that's where violence usually take place amongst one another.I know that.I don't care about that.

I care about us, our community right now as it pertains to this subject.What are we going to do people?I'm talking to black people.What are we going to do?Barack Obama had his presidential center opened this past Friday.We all celebrating it and we got nothing to say about 39 black folks, 39 people rather getting shot six fatally.

How about this?Let me read some numbers to you.because I think it's important.It's only right.Chicago, in the year 2024, recorded 580 homicides in that one year alone, with Black residents accounting for roughly 3 quarters to 4 fifths of the victims.The racial safety gap remains stark.

The University of Chicago Crime Lab reports that in 2025, Black Chicagoans had a homicide rate of nearly 40 per 100 ,000 residents, compared with less than two per 100 ,000 residents for white residents.That means black residents were more than 20 times more likely to be homicide victims.Chicago Public Schools directs additional resources to high poverty neighborhoods with operational spending ranging from roughly $19 ,000 to $22 ,000 per student.Yet the city continues to lose hundreds of Black lives to violence each year.Even after total homicides fell to 416 in the year 2025, from the 580 in 2024, Black residents still accounted for the overwhelming majority of victims.Where's the noise about that?

Not politics!It's not policy!I'm a Black man concerned about Black people because we make up 13 % of the population.So if we made up 57 % of the population, like the white community does, deaths don't affect us numbers -wise the way that it affects the black community.Since the Hispanic community is the dominant minority in this country, it doesn't affect them numbers -wise compared to the way that it affects us.We keep allowing this stuff to go on in the streets of Chicago or St. Louis or anywhere else.

where it's prevalent.We're gonna be a damn endangered species.Got nothing to say?I'm very sorry about Carmelo Anthony.I don't like the fact that he got 35 years.I really, really don't.

Not when I think about Case and Allison.Not when I think about Kyle Rittenhouse.Remember him, August 2020?during unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.He's 17 years old at the time.He shot and killed two people and wounded a third while claiming self -defense.

And then in November of 2021, a jury acquitted him on all charges, including homicide and reckless endangerment finding he acted in self -defense.I don't like that discrepancy.Not one bit.That's why I mentioned it.Don't like the Trayvon Martin thing.I still remember that from 2012 Sanford, Florida neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin.

He was 17 years old.who was unarmed and walking home after a confrontation.Zimmerman claimed self -defense, got acquitted of second degree murder and manslaughter.You think I forgot that?

I did not.

I'm still sitting here saying to you right now, Carmelo Anthony is different than that.He had a knife that he brought to attract me.Life wasn't in danger.And he said, put your hands on me and see what happens.A shove ended up into a killing, which is why you see the polarization that you're witnessing.Because on one hand, you have somebody like a Dr. Umar Johnson, who, by the way, is highly intelligent, by the way, Officer Tatum.

I'm not gonna call him names and disrespect a man like that.I just...understand why he's going this route.But it is fair to show what he had to say in both of these videos, and Officer Tatum's response to both of these videos.Play that for us, please.

I want you to see how white supremacy operates behind the scenes.You can't challenge the grand jury, Loon, because you don't even know who they are.Right.So the people who decided this 17 -year -old would be charged with murder are complete secrets, and you and I both know they all white.Are you with me?So first, deal with the grand jury.

Him being charged with murder was a crime in and of itself.So what do you say about the event?Hold on.Let me give you one more.You're moving too fast.Hold on.

In Texas, if you're 17, you're automatically tried as an adult.Grand jury had no control over that.Are you with me?Yes.He was 17.He's automatically tried as an adult, but he doesn't automatically have to be indicted with murder.

that could have been aggravated, right?Man slaughter.There's a whole list of crimes they could have went with.So you're saying he should have been charged.

It's not what time out time out.I think he went to ignorant black folk university and got his doctorate degree honorary.He didn't even study to do that.He's he, he, he got an honorary degree from a, from a fake university where dumb black people go.What do you mean?They had a choice.

The grand jury don't try to find charges for you.have a probable cause statement from law enforcement to the prosecution and they present it to the grand jury.They're presenting murder to the grand jury and they're giving the elements of a crime that implicates him on murder charges.The grand jury evaluates the evidence and determines, is this prosecutable?Based on what was explained, they don't just pick charges for you when you just say, Carmelo Anthony got into a fight and they go, oh, let me see what charge we want to do.A liquor law violation.

They don't go like that.Omar Johnson wouldn't know that because he a stew head.

Austin fell onto Carmelo's knife trying to attack him because the knife is three and a half inches.The cut was only two.Loon, if I'm stabbing you, why am I going halfway with a knife blade that's only three and a half inches?You fell onto my knife.Regardless, Loon, do you really think those two black boys who fell on that white boy's knife?

Time out, bro.I can't do it.I got to get my haircut.My barber here fell on a knife.There ain't no human being on planet Earth out of 21 witnesses said that he fell on a knife.Carmelo Anthony's defense is arguing that he fell on a knife.

Nobody's saying that the Black, these Black people cannot take accountability for nothing.Now the boy done fell on somebody's knife.

That's the problem right there.You see, ultimately, we gotta pick our battles.We gotta be better than that.What we gonna do?We gotta come together to resolve some of these issues.What's the best way to do it?

First order of business is to be real.to be real about the evidence that we're looking at and go from there and pick our fights and pick our battles.It's important to do that.Again, I don't like the idea of Carmelo Anthony being sentenced to 35 years at all.I don't like the makeup of the jury not having an African -American on it at all.I get it.

I understand.And I don't know all of the specifics that went into the jury ultimately being made up of what it was made up of.I'm quite sure that there were blacks that were interviewed before being placed on the jury, before the decision was made as to who would be placed on the jury and who wasn't.But the point of the matter is that I don't like it.I don't like the look.I don't like the optics because we're here having these questions.

But what's inescapable and what's undeniable is that Carmelo Anthony said, he put his hands on me, so I stabbed him.He said, it's not alleged, I did it.Confessed to doing so and told people he did so.Not only that, there were witnesses that saw it happen.Not only that, Austin Metcalf's brother was there.And his brother died right in front of him.

So, when we sit up here and we think about the battles that need to be fought, we gotta be mindful of what's worth fighting for and what's not worth fighting for.I'm talking about the merits of the case, not the human being.Because all of us are God's children.And my heart goes out to Carmelo Anthony and his family.I wish this didn't happen.I wish that he's not gonna spend at least the next 17 years in prison barring an appeal that's won.

But he killed someone.And this argument of self -defense in the jury's eyes didn't hold weight.We can try to fight and fight and fight over that.But you know what?If you're going to fight as vigilantly as diligently over that, how can we not fighting about what's happening in Chicago?Why we ain't fighting about that?

Why we got the president calling out the governor of Illinois.Why is that?Look at what the president said.Look at what Donald Trump said.Lots of killing going on in Chicago.22 people shot.

That number was wrong.It was more than that.At least four people dead.That number was wrong.It was more than that.Why isn't governor Pritzker calling me for help?

I can make Chicago a safe city in one month, in one year.It would be one of the safest.D .C.went from one of the worst to one of the safest cities in the United States.Once again, self -aggrandizement, taking anything that he can to make it about him instead of about the real issue.

You understand?Showing that the narcissism has no limits, but that's your president and mine.He is the president of the United States.It's just a damn shame that he's that petty, but that's neither here nor there.It doesn't make him wrong.Now, do I believe that the president should go in to put the National Guard into a city against the will of the mayor and against the will of the governor and against the will of the people?

Absolutely, positively not.Do I believe, however, that Governor Pritzker should be asking for resources from the federal government, from the president himself, to make sure that the streets of Chicago are safe?Yes, I do.And if I recall correctly, I've had Governor Pritzker on this show and he acknowledged just as much.He specified it doesn't need to be the National Guard.It needs to be other things.

And I get that part, but there is no denying that help is needed.How many times are we going to hear about folks getting killed in the streets of Chicago?How many times?And if we care about black lives, we need to care about that.Something has to be done.Last time I checked, there's a bunch of law -abiding, God -fearing citizens who happen to be black living in the streets of Chicago, on the South side, on the West side, and every place in between.

You can't use the word enslavement in an official capacity associated with Juneteenth, but ain't that an element of it?If you were in the streets of Chicago, living in one of these neighborhoods, and you're a parent or a grandparent or an aunt or an uncle, an elder statesman, and it's dangerous for you,you to walk the streets because you don't know whether or not you're going to get shot?Is that not a form of enslavement?But you can't come outside half the time because you're too damn scared.I recall seeing black people on national television from Chicago calling for martial law to be invoked, begging for federal assistance.

This is before Trump got back in office.This was years ago.What's going to be done about it?What's going to be done about it?And now we're living in a polarized society that we're living in.I'm asking the question.

I'm not engaging in condemnation.The criminals, the one who was doing the killings, they're the ones who need to be condemned.I'm not trying to denigrate anybody in the streets of Chicago.God -fearing, law -abiding citizens just trying to make a life for themselves.Every time we turn around, there's something going on in Chicago.Every time.

And the vast majority of victims happen to be Black.We're gonna speak about that.Same energy, y 'all.Don't lose the intensity.Keep the same intensity.We're gonna fight and fight and fight over A young kid that admitted he killed somebody?

And we care crickets?When 39 people get shot and 6 get killed in Chicago on Juneteenth?Have you read some of this stuff?Juneteenth holiday came to a violent end on the South Side with more than 100 shell casings near 95th and Wentworth.where a drive -by shooting left 14 people injured just after 11 p .m.m.

on Friday.The victims were between 17 and 47 years of age, and that was just one location.

You got nothing to say about that?

Nothing to say about that at all?Other people have something to say about it.You can sit up there and get on his delivery, his presentation, his vocabulary.You can say whatever the hell you want to say.How about this cat, Charleston White?I want y 'all to listen to this brother.

You understand?He's not everybody's cup of tea now.You ain't going to see him on network television now.You ain't going to see that.But I want you to listen.Don't just, don't pay attention to the presentation.

Pay attention to the substance, to the substance of his words and exactly what he is saying.

Just listen, listen to this.You know, we obviously blamed the rapper, but we ignore who's behind the rapper.Nobody.It's the white man.No, you goddamn lie.No, it's the white man.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.Listen, when you show up to my record label with your killing music, I ain't behind what you wrote.The white man is for sure.You wrote him for you got her.

And you just gave a million for it.But, but you wrote it.

But listen, listen, listen, brother, brother, I'm a businessman, right?I ain't got nothing to do with what, what you wrote.You wrote the lyrics talking about killing your neighbor.

But you didn't tell me no.

This isn't what you're supposed to be writing.

You said I'm gonna give you a million dollars for this.

So you encouraged it.No, I didn't.With the utmost dollar amount.No, no, no, I didn't.I'm a businessman, and I'm about business.Because when you stop rapping this, and I get a nod like,

and he can rap gay, I'm gonna sign him too.You showed up with these gay killer lyrics, brother.I ain't got nothing to do with what's in your mind and what you want to project.I just know your destruction makes money.You came to provide y 'all destruction and it's gonna benefit me and my family.Why would I turn you down?

Do you turn down the pregnant drug addict who's trying to buy crack from you, brother?What about the girl who may look underage and selling?Do you turn her down?What about your homeboy's woman who's in a compromised state and you can f**k her and she come to you.So you turn her down.So you want me to turn you down and I can make trillions off your ignorance.

You're not bringing me nothing positive that I can promote to Disney.I can make you richer than you can ever be if you wrote me some Disney lyrics.Hey, if you just want to be like Nick Cannon, I can make you a star forever.But you want to be a star just for a small time, so you write gangster lyrics because you don't want to live long.Your mind wrote these lyrics.All of that hate that you're professing, I didn't whisper that in your ear.

I didn't pick your mother and your father when they made it, and your dad left your mom, you know, to go to jail.I didn't have nothing to do with that, guy.Why are you blaming me as a white man?I got a record label, brother.We just want to sell records to your people.And if we don't have these records to sell to your people, how will your people make music?

Your people don't have record labels.How will they make music if it wasn't for us?

There's a whole bunch of people expressing that sentiment, and it's not on behalf of white folks or anybody outside of the black community.It's being expressed by black people who are disgusted with us picking the wrong battles to fight, facilitating and initiating our own demise.Carmelo Anthony had a bright future, had a 3 .7 GPA, worked two jobs, no criminal record.Of course you wish that there was some leniency, that the young man wasn't being sentenced to 35 years in prison.Rostam Metcalf is dead.He had people going off because somebody said, you know, me or somebody else, he was murdered.

Well, okay, fine.He wasn't murdered.He was killed.We didn't say while the case was going on, we said he was murdered because he got convicted of murder or his assailant got convicted of murder.Sorry that the proper lingo wasn't used.Austin Metcalfe is dead.

He was killed.The person convicted first degree murder of Austin Metcalfe was Carmelo Anthony and folks are in an uproar because that life has been drastically changed.forever.One may have nothing to do with the other.And some people's eyes to a lot of cynics and skeptics out there who are always looking for a reason, a nugget of proof to look at the black community and get on us for not having our eyes and our energy where it needs to be.They're going to point to Juneteenth in Chicago and they're going to say, they said nothing about that.

You know what else they're going to accuse us of?They're going to accuse us of, only caring about black lives being lost when it comes at the hands of somebody outside the black community.What happens when that narrative is fed into and it's allowed to foam in and grow, all of a sudden, it hits the legal system, even more so.And there's an additional mark against us for focusing a lot less on what we should be focused on.My heart goes out to Carmelo Anthony.I don't like the thought of the brother being in jail for at least the next 17 years.

But I like even less the fact that Austin Metcalf is never coming home, as is the case with six people that were killed on Juneteenth in the streets of Southside, Chicago, and another 39 injured.We gonna talk about it.Let's talk about it.That's all I'm trying to say.In fact, it is one of the things we'll be talking about later on this week, because as has been the case on a weekly basis over the last couple of weeks, I told you as a registered independent, I wanted to get voices from the Black community, not just from the Black community, but primarily from the Black community, on both the right and the left side of the aisle, to come together and debate the issues that are really pertinent to us as American citizens and as Black people in the United States of America.It won't be the only ones.

I'll bring on white folks.I'll bring on Hispanic folks.I'll bring on stuff.As long as you're on the left and the right and you got something to debate, I'm welcoming you to the table to have a discussion so all of us can be enlightened.And no question, when I had Theron Johnson out of Atlanta and one and only Anton Daniels out of Detroit debating just a few hours ago.One of the things that I asked him was about the whole Carmelo Anthony situation, about how the black community is being perceived, etc.

There's a lot of things we talked about.There's a lot of things you're going to see, but not to be specific, but just to give you a taste of the flavor.you're gonna see posted on my YouTube channel in just a couple of days.Here's a look at Anton Daniels and Theron Johnson.

So what we're seeing with our crime stats is that people in America, and it's not just a Black issue, it's everybody, right?that they're de -escalating situations no more with just fighting.They're actually using guns to shoot people.The other thing I would say is this, the issue around crime.We got to give people more access to jobs, right?I believe that people right now are poor, they're hurting, they're hungry, gas prices are out of control.

And so they are using these guns and this violence to shoot people.And a lot of them are like turf wars.A lot of these are disagreements about family disagreements, about a partner or a woman or a man.And we're not able to de -escalate that anymore.

They are juking the stats and they're reallocating how they're classifying crime.A lot of these crimes actually go unreported.These are not issues of people that are having some kind of domestic dispute and then it spirals out of control.These are people that are targeting other people, carjackings, taking them to ATMs and having them remove money, telling them to give you your phone so they can get your password.These are drive -bys.When 12 people were shot over Juneteenth, Right?

This past weekend, over in Chicago, that was a drive -by, and they had over 113 shell casings on the ground.

As I said to you on many occasions, ladies and gentlemen, this is gonna be a case for, this is gonna be a place, rather, for riveting discussion.I'm not trying to take sides.I'm trying to learn.I'm trying to edify myself.Be better so I can do better, and contribute to enlightening folks about how they need to be better so they can do better, so we can all do better.That's what straight shooter's all about.

That's what straight shooter media's all about.That's what straight shooter's all about.is all about.That's what it's been about, and that's what it's going to continue to be about.Get used to it, because I'm not going anywhere.And hopefully, neither are you.

Please remember to subscribe to Straight Shooter with yours truly, Stephen A. Smith.Subscribe to my YouTube channel, Straight Shooter Media.Please continue to provide the support.Keep the love coming.I'm going to keep on coming.Until next time, everybody, this is Stephen A signing off.

Peace and love.