A 31-year-old Florida man and January 6 defendant is sitting in a Collin County jail cell on a $1 million bond after authorities say he was recorded on a livestream video threatening to shoot Karmelo Anthony in the head outside the McKinney, Texas, courthouse where Anthony stood trial for murder.
Jake Lang, who describes himself as a right-wing activist and who spent four years in federal prison before receiving a presidential pardon, now faces a third-degree felony terroristic threat charge in Texas. If convicted, he faces two to ten years behind bars, a consequence that should surprise no one who watches the video authorities say they recovered.
The case matters for two reasons. First, because it hands critics of the conservative movement a gift-wrapped example of reckless conduct to wave in front of cameras. And second, because it underscores a hard truth: no verdict, however just, is served by someone allegedly threatening to execute the defendant on a courthouse lawn.
Court documents obtained exclusively by CBS News Texas lay out the state's case against Lang in blunt terms. On June 4, the first day of testimony in Anthony's murder trial, Lang was recorded on a live stream video outside the Collin County Courthouse.
The words attributed to him in those filings leave little room for ambiguity.
"He won't be playing basketball. I will be waiting outside this courthouse. Guess what? Headshot. Done."
An unidentified person on the video then asked the obvious follow-up: "So, you going to kill Karmelo Anthony?" Lang's alleged reply, per the court records: "Yes. Yes, I will."
Texas law treats a terroristic threat as a third-degree felony. The charge does not require that a defendant possess the means to carry out the threat, only that the statement was made with the intent to place someone in fear of imminent serious bodily injury.
The Texas Fusion Center, an intelligence unit within the Texas Department of Public Safety, had been covertly monitoring the courthouse, social media accounts, and live streams throughout the Anthony trial. Agents used facial recognition technology to identify Lang as the individual on the video.
That level of surveillance during a state murder trial is itself notable. Hundreds of demonstrators had gathered outside the Collin County Courthouse during proceedings, and Fox News reported that the opening day of the trial saw dueling crowds turning the courthouse grounds into a shouting match.
The court documents add another detail: two days before his arrest, Lang had already received a criminal trespass warning banning him from courthouse property for 30 days. Authorities say he was violating that warning at the time he was taken into custody while attempting to leave Texas.
Lang was booked into the Collin County Jail. His bond hearing was scheduled before Judge John Roach Jr., the same judge who presided over the Anthony murder trial.
The stabbing that set all of this in motion occurred on April 2, 2025, at Kuykendahl Stadium during a Frisco ISD track meet. Karmelo Anthony stabbed 17-year-old Austin Metcalf once in the chest. Metcalf, a student-athlete, later died at the hospital.
Anthony claimed he acted in self-defense after Metcalf shoved him. A Texas jury rejected that argument, found Anthony guilty of murder, and sentenced him to 35 years in prison on June 10, 2026. The jury also rejected Anthony's "sudden passion" claim, which would have reduced the sentence.
Prosecutor Bill Wirskye told jurors during opening statements that Anthony provoked the confrontation and used a hidden knife, calling it a "provoked unjustified murder" that "has nothing to do with race." Defense attorney Mike Howard countered that Anthony was a student-athlete and honor-roll student who "reacts in a split second of fear and chaos."
The jury heard both sides and delivered its verdict. The system worked. A young man was held accountable for taking another young man's life. That should have been the end of the spectacle.
Jake Lang is no stranger to law enforcement. He participated in the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol and served four years in federal prison before President Donald Trump pardoned him. Since his pardon, Lang has accumulated additional arrests, though the specific charges from those incidents are not detailed in the court filings.
The pardon gave Lang a second chance. What he appears to have done with it, traveling from Florida to Texas to insert himself into a racially charged murder trial, a case that House Democrats had already seized upon to cry racism, raises fair questions about judgment and motive.
Lang reportedly held a sign reading "White Lives Matter" with a photo of Austin Metcalf while confronting Anthony's supporters outside the courthouse. Jeff Metcalf, the victim's father, has himself accused protesters led by Lang of being "race baiters", a telling rebuke from the very family Lang claimed to champion.
That father has been outspoken throughout the ordeal. He previously condemned the former Frisco ISD superintendent over decisions related to Anthony's case, demonstrating that the Metcalf family needs no self-appointed spokesman, least of all one who allegedly threatens murder on camera.
CBS News Texas also discovered that Lang maintains an online fundraising account that has collected nearly $50,000. The name of the platform was not disclosed in the court documents. But the reporting flagged an uncomfortable detail: the same crowdfunding platform recently shut down an account that had been collecting money for the Anthony family.
One account, raising money for a convicted murderer's family, gets pulled. Another, raising money for a man now charged with threatening to kill that same convicted murderer, stays live. The platform's reasoning, if any, remains unexplained.
Austin Metcalf's death was a genuine tragedy. The verdict was just. Conservatives rightly pointed out the left's cynical attempts to turn a murder conviction into a racial grievance narrative. Rep. Jasmine Crockett's suggestion that she would have done the same thing Anthony did was a low point in the progressive response, a sitting congresswoman effectively endorsing lethal violence.
But none of that excuses what Lang allegedly did. Threatening to execute a man outside a courthouse, on camera, no less, is not activism. It is not advocacy for the Metcalf family. It is conduct that undermines every legitimate argument conservatives have made about this case.
The legal system convicted Karmelo Anthony. It sentenced him to 35 years. The process worked precisely as it should. When someone then shows up from out of state, waves a racially charged sign, and allegedly promises a "headshot" on a livestream, he does not advance justice. He gives opponents ammunition to dismiss the entire conservative position as fringe extremism.
Lang now sits in the same county jail system that processed the man he allegedly threatened. His bond hearing before Judge Roach will determine whether he stays there. No public statement from Lang or any legal representative has surfaced in the available record.
Several open questions remain. What specific prior arrests has Lang accumulated since his pardon? On what platform did the livestream appear? And will the crowdfunding site that shut down the Anthony family's account apply the same standard to Lang's nearly $50,000 war chest?
Conservatives who care about law and order, who argued, correctly, that Anthony deserved accountability for what he did to Austin Metcalf, should be the first to say that Jake Lang deserves accountability too. The right to protest is sacred. The right to threaten someone's life on camera does not exist.
If you want the justice system to be taken seriously, you don't get to cheer the verdict and then allegedly promise to carry out the sentence yourself on a courthouse sidewalk.
