COLLIN COUNTY, Texas — The prosecutor in a controversial North Texas murder trial wanted to make one thing clear to the jury: “This case,” he said during opening statements, “has nothing to do with race.”
But soon after the jury began to hear the case against Karmelo Anthony, 19, last week, right-wing provocateur Jake Lang appeared outside the courthouse shouting that Anthony, who is Black, should be “lynched.” Anthony is charged with murder in the stabbing death of a White teen at a track meet last year. He has pleaded not guilty, claiming self-defense.
Lang is not a resident of Frisco — he lives in Florida — but he has repeatedly used the April 2025 killing of high school student Austin Metcalf, 17, to promote racial divisions in the fast-growing city of 250,000 north of Dallas. Lang first gained notoriety as part of the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and since then has injected himself and his racialized rhetoric into high-profile national news events. In Frisco, he found a community that was already dealing with ethnic and racial divisions before the Metcalf killing.
A candidate for Frisco mayor has called immigrants “rats” and Islam a “terrorist group” while speakers at city council meetings have complained of an “Indian takeover,” accused legal immigrants of stealing American jobs and tried to block construction of a new Hindu temple and a mosque. Remarks at some meetings have been so abusive, the mayor suspended public comment this month to foster a “return to civility.”
Trey Snider, a local small-business owner, said he came to the courthouse because he feared Black Lives Matter activists would use the trial as an excuse to riot. He also said that he opposes illegal immigration and fears Muslim extremism.
“We love legal immigrants and immigrants who want to be part of America,” said Snider, 58. “But we don’t want to be taken over like Europe.”
Marlana Christopher, another local business owner, said she was drawn to the courthouse as a mother of six Black sons, concerned that Anthony receive a fair trial amid the racist backlash that she says has overshadowed the case.
“Collin County is a 100-percent red county, and they see that changing,” said Christopher, 46. “There’s a lot of fearmongering, political propaganda.”
Frisco has grown 61 percent in the past decade, making it the 10th-fastest-growing city in the United States, according to a study released this month. Frisco had a population of under 35,000 as recently as 2000, before the arrival of corporate headquarters and sports teams — Keurig Dr Pepper, Ruiz Foods, Addus HomeCare, PGA of America, the Dallas Cowboys and soccer club FC Dallas — helped drive the explosive growth that spread north from Dallas.
It’s now about 46 percent White, 34 percent Asian (primarily Indian American), 10 percent Latino and 10 percent Black, according to the latest Census, and surrounding Collin and Denton counties are home to four of the country’s fastest-growing cities.
While Collin County and Denton are still considered deeply red — most local and state officials are Republican — as the area has grown, it has become increasingly politically diverse. President Donald Trump garnered 54 percent of the 2024 vote in Collin County and Kamala Harris received 43 percent — less than the margin by which Trump won Texas.
There are also more diverse Republicans. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a staunch Trump ally running for U.S. Senate, is a longtime Collin County resident, but so is Abraham George, an Indian American immigrant elected chair of the Texas GOP. Burt Thakur, who also emigrated from India, is among the Republican-aligned members of Frisco’s nonpartisan city council.
Thakur blames outsiders for stirring anti-immigrant hate at Frisco council meetings.
“There are a lot of disaffected Americans who are asking, ‘Hey, why are we outsourcing jobs?’” Thakur said. “There is a group of people who grew up here saying, ‘Hey, where is my American Dream?’ But the counterpoint is there are also people who came here legally and say, ‘I have an American Dream, too.’”
But Rev. Billy Echols-Richter, lead pastor at Grace Avenue United Methodist Church in Frisco for 27 years, said the hateful rhetoric has come from locals, too.
“As we’ve become diversified, there are some people that have become very afraid, particularly white nationalists in our community, that these other groups are going to come and take over,” said Echols-Richter, president of Frisco’s Interfaith Alliance, which includes members of the local mosque and Hindu temple.
Echols-Richter said Frisco’s economic growth is riding on the election to replace Frisco’s mayor of nine years.
“What’s at stake is whether we’re going to continue to be a world-class city or pull back and be known as a city that doesn’t believe in diversity,” he said. “It could very deeply affect the strategic growth of Frisco. Businesses are not going to want to come to a city if there’s this sense of hate and bigotry.”
Metcalf’s killing at a high school track meet started, authorities say, when Anthony sat under the tent of Metcalf’s team. Metcalf confronted Anthony and told him to leave. Testimony at the trial, which is expected to conclude this week, offered differing witness accounts about who was the aggressor. But the encounter ended with Anthony telling law enforcement that he had pulled a knife and stabbed Metcalf. Right-wing influencers like Lang seized on the youths’ races, drawing national scrutiny.
Initially, Metcalf’s father disavowed those who focused on race as a contributing factor. But Lang, 30, and other conservative influencers began attending city council meetings in what Lang called “Frisco-istan,” using the public comment period to disparage South Asian and Muslim immigrants they said were “taking over Texas,” accusing them of pedophilia, visa fraud and refusing to assimilate.
Neha Suratran, 22, a Hindu tech worker raised in Frisco, started attending council meetings earlier this year to “debunk misinformation.” At the first meeting, she watched the audience cheer as a man carrying an Indian flag and speaking with a fake Indian accent said he loves to defecate in the streets and litter to make it feel more like home.
“To see something like that was jarring,” Suratran said, noting the video went on to garner millions of views online.
At another council meeting, she saw a right-wing influencer take photos of a local Boy Scout troop and post them online, alleging the group had been “taken over” by Indians.
“But at the same time, they call for Indians to assimilate. So when we are doing American things that’s a problem, but when we’re not it’s also a problem,” said Suratran, whose speech at the council also went viral.
Last month, anti-immigrant rhetorichelped extreme right-wing candidates win Texas GOP runoffs for U.S. Senate, attorney general and even railroad commissioner.
“Now that MAGA extremism is becoming the norm, people are more comfortable being racist in person and online,” Suratran said.
A city council meeting last month grew particularly heated, when the council did not block plans for a new mosque, Hindu and Jain temples. At the most recent meeting earlier this month, outgoing Mayor Jeff Cheney announced he was suspending public comment until the new mayor takes office in August.
“It’s moved beyond a First Amendment issue and become a safety issue. We will return to civility,” Cheney said afterward, noting safety concerns for residents attending the meetings.
“At some point you just have to turn the temperature down. It has become a part of the mayor’s race. This rhetoric has become a part of that.”
Cheney has endorsed Mark Hill to succeed him, a local attorney and former school board member whose campaign motto is “Unite Frisco.”
“Candidates should be lowering the temperature, not raising it,” Hill told The Washington Post. Frisco residents, he said, “are coming from all over and I want to keep it that way.”
Rod Vilhauer, whose campaign motto is “Frisco First,” told a podcast that “people are coming in and out here like rats.” He refused to attend a candidate forum at the local mosque. And earlier this month, he told a Dallas-area South Asian radio network, “The people I want to run out of here are the people that govern themselves by sharia.” He said that he values Hispanic people, but “they’re never going to be doctors, and they’re never going to be tech people.”
Vilhauer told The Post he publicly apologized for comments impugning legal immigrants and met with their families.
“We’re a cultural melting pot,” he said of Frisco, where he’s lived for 40 years. “I just want the right development and the right people here.”
At Peace Middle East Café that opened last week down the street from Frisco city hall, owner Jehad Wadi, who describes himself as Palestinian Syrian American, said he’s tired of the extremism. “It should be a lot more peaceful,” he said.
Wadi, 35, said he supported the mayor’s decision to suspend public comment. “Freedom of speech should end when you’re threatening people’s existence.”
At Frisco’s sprawling Karya Siddhi Hanuman Temple, Laxmi Tummala, a local real estate agent, said she was heartened by support from the community after anti-immigrant protesters targeted the temple.
“We continue on our path,” Tummala said. “It’s kind of like being in the eye of the storm.”
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