AIBU to think USA has gone crazy - Karmelo Anthony is a murderer not a victim

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From what I have read, Karmelo Anthony (who is black African American) took a concealed knife to a track event. When it started raining he ran to another team's tent to shelter. He was told to leave by a white athlete called Austin Metcalfe. KA refused saying ' 'Touch me and see what happens', According to one account I read he was repeatedly told to leave and replied the same way each time. Austin Metcalfe then pushed KA to get him to leave and KA pulled out the knife and stabbed AM in the chest, killing him.

Apparently sections of America are outraged that KA has now been convicted of murder. Possible sentence range in America is 5 to 99 years for this offence and he got 35 years.

I don't understand how this is not murder. In UK law if you can run away you must, and he didn't. In UK law if you kill someone when you could have run, you will be tried for murder.

KA took a knife. He could have left (even if he thought it was a dick move to ask him to leave when it was raining - you can't murder people for being dickish about their gazebo) but chose to not to, escalating the situation with threatening language and then stabbed a young man in the chest.

I just think something has gone terribly wrong in USA society where this man is treated as a victim, not the person who he killed, and this case is regarded as an injustice against him. I hope the UK does not go down this route.

Drunk drivers don’t get convicted of 1st degree murder.
No one is saying he shouldn’t go down for unlawful killing, we are simply pointing out that the killing doesn’t meet the legal requirements for the worst degree of murder- 1st degree.

Depends on the state as to the ability to leave. Some states have a hold your ground exception which means you can use deadly force on an aggressor even if you can leave or use less force.

And bear in mind he shouldn’t have even been at the event (KA). He was suspended from school for having a weapon and banned from athletic events but he turned up anyway.

To the poster who keeps implying KA was scared because of the shove. 12 witnesses all stated he was the aggressor, not Austin.

'don’t think he coldly planned to murder anyone when he went out that evening to the track meet.'

Maybe not but clearly with a weapon he was happy to do it anyway. Not like he pushed him and he fell and cracked his head and died. That would have obviously been tragic but not murder. This was murder.

Murder, so do you think it was 1st, 2nd or 3rd degree murder? And if so why?
(hoping you will look up the difference and realise….hmmm this wasn’t 1st degree)

I just want to point out that Texas doesn’t have degrees of murder. You’re getting confused between degrees of murder and degrees of felony.
Murder is a first degree felony.
In Texas, premeditation is not required for a murder charge.
The most serious charge is Capital murder.
Karmelo Anthony was not convicted or charged with capital murder.

You need to read up about Texas law.

Edits cos I missed a few things.

If you're scared, you run. You don't start stabbing!

To ‘de-escalate’, somebody else must have done something to ‘escalate’. Who escalated to start with?

Texas doesn't have 3rd degree murder convictions?

Except that this wasm't set up to be orivate and schools have their own gazebos. Also even KA's friends admitted that he was the aggressor.

It's not self defence to stab someone to death when all they've done is push you a but after you refused to leave. I agree they shouldn't have told him to leave but his actions were disproportionate and totally unnecessary. If he felt threatened he could have left the tent. He stabbed hard enough to kill, that takes effort, and he got the sentence he deserves.

Perhaps you've never lost someone you love to murder by stabbing but I have and there no sentence long enough to atone for it.

Yes when you read this article, its clear the charge and conviction was right

https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/whats-the-difference-manslaughter-murder-karmelo-anthony-trial-austin-metcalf-stabbing/

Don't be silly. Of course it's race baiting given what's currently going on in the UK. Op is trying to justify the riots in Southampton and Belfast by saying we need to take action now and put people of colour in their place so we don't become like the US. Especially considering in the US blacks are lynched for breakfast op's post really doesn't make sense unless they have posted purely to race bait.

Having said that of course KA is a murderer as was proven by their justice system and he is doing pretty long time. In a country of 300000000 people you will always find some who will support anything.

However do we have to dig up every murder or atrocity committed by a person of colour and every single comment that some nutter has uttered in their support to vilify people of colour? Because that is all that this is about. Completely random case to make the point that people of colour are bad and unless you show them who is the boss they will ruin this country.

It was a murder and he was convicted of murder.

However, as you are no doubt aware, a lot (numerically rather than proportionally) of African-Americans, particularly in the South, don't trust the police or the justice system to deal with them fairly. Hence what you're seeing.

It's been a racialised society for a long time.

He murdered someone with a knife that was in his bag. You think that’s a slap on the wrist kind of an offence? You literally can’t go round stabbing people to death. The world has gone completely bonkers.

Some of the posts are odd, ie the one you’re replying to. Agree it’s murder. Not a scuffle.

Texas doesn’t have first degree murder, actually. So that’s not what he was convicted of. He was convicted of criminal homicide by murder under section 19(02)(b)(2) of the Texas Penal Code, which states:

A person commits an offense if the person:
(2) intends to cause serious bodily injury and commits an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of an individual;

In this case, he stabbed the victim in the chest with a knife. That is self-evidently an act that was both intended to cause a serious injury and was clearly dangerous to human life - and it did indeed cause the death of the person stabbed.

So he wasn’t charged with and convicted of an offence disproportionate to his actions. The charge exactly fitted them, in fact.

Bear in mind he shouldn’t have even been at the event (KA). He was suspended from school for having a weapon and banned from athletic events but he turned up anyway

I didn't know that, @SpiritofaPanda, but then I wasn't there to hear all the evidence

I don't imagine many of those so keen to support this killer were either, but even remembering that turning up at something you're banned from is hardly a heinous crime, it doesn't seem to stop them climbing on their hobby horses

Shame

He wasnt convicted of turning up somewhere that he was banned from. No one thinks that was a heinous crime.

Stabbing someone and killing them is a heinous crime. Thats what he has been convicted of.

I've been shocked to see some people online sympathising more with the murderer than the victim. A lot of american blm activists are defending the killer, and some are even posting ai images of themselves defacing the murdered boy's grave. Murder is murder. It doesn't help anyone, including black people, to infantilise them and make endless excuses for their actions. A black murderer is not a victim any more than a white one is; the victim is the young man who lost his life.
Grievance politics in the usa have become incredibly toxic and damaging for everyone involved. I hate how it's been imported over here as well. Too many people seen to think they are eternal victims because they are black/white/christian/muslim/jewish/right wing/left wing etc etc and seem to think that everything they do is the fault of someone else. The excesses of each side just fuel the others. We need to try and find a better way forward than people fracturing into endless identity groups, competing over who is more oppressed, and encouraging resentment and aggression towards everyone else.

I believe four of the jurors were Asian?

From what I have read (and how true it is I don't know) is that the prospective black jurers didn't make it through to the final selection as they said they wouldn't find him guilty due KA's race.

Asian, Hispanic, Middle Eastern and white, but I haven’t heard any numbers.

I read it was because they were three ‘educators’ (which is teachers?) but I don’t really understand why that was a problem.

Texas has them alright, the terms 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree are US umbrella terms that cover similar grades of murder with similar requirements despite the fact that individual states technically have different names for them.

Texas calls 1st degree murder capital murder, 2nd degree is simply murder and 3rd degree is called homicide.

However the terms 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree murder are used in all national news reports so that fellow Americans can easily understand what is referred to.

No they were discarded because they were educators,