Frederick Haynes III, the Dallas pastor tapped to replace retiring Rep. Jasmine Crockett in Congress, used his Father's Day pulpit to defend the man convicted of fatally stabbing a 17-year-old football standout at a track meet, calling the killer "our friend" and "a little boy" who never got a fair trial.
Haynes, the Democratic nominee for Texas's 30th Congressional District and a heavy favorite to win in November, delivered the remarks from Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas, where Crockett has long been a parishioner. His sermon recast 19-year-old Karmelo Anthony, sentenced this month to 35 years in prison, as a victim of systemic racism rather than a man found guilty of taking a teenager's life.
The sermon lays bare a pattern. Haynes is not simply a progressive pastor with strong opinions. He is a would-be congressman with a record of defending the indefensible, from praising Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan to suggesting, the day after Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis, that the terror group acted in self-defense. Now he wants a vote in the U.S. House.
The Washington Free Beacon reported that Haynes told his congregation he had personally attended the Anthony trial and left disgusted, not at the crime, but at the defense team and the jury's composition.
"This boy, our friend, can't even defend himself. We are not safe."
He went further, attacking the prosecution for portraying Anthony accurately as a violent offender:
"I sat there disgusted because the prosecuting attorney then had the nerve to paint Karmelo Anthony as a monster of a man."
Haynes singled out the jury, telling his congregation it was made up entirely of non-black members. He described the prosecutor pointing at Anthony during closing arguments and telling jurors they had "an opportunity here in Collin County to determine the kind of community that you want to live in." Haynes then asked his congregants: "What do you think he was saying to that all non-black jury?"
A judge had already rejected defense arguments that the prosecution's peremptory challenges against prospective black jurors were racially motivated. The jury, while containing no black members, did include several people of color. Haynes omitted that detail.
In April 2025, Karmelo Anthony fatally stabbed Austin Metcalf, a 17-year-old white football standout, at a Dallas-area track meet. Witnesses said Anthony provoked and insulted other students before the attack. A Collin County jury convicted Anthony of murder, and the court sentenced him to 35 years.
Anthony and his defenders claimed self-defense. The jury did not buy it.
The case drew national attention in part because of the racial dynamics, Anthony is black, Metcalf was white, and because Anthony's supporters raised more than $630,000 through a crowdfunding campaign. Questions have since emerged about how that money was spent after the conviction.
Anthony filed an appeal of his sentence almost immediately. The case remains a flashpoint in Texas.
Haynes is not operating in a vacuum. Crockett, the woman he calls his mentor relationship mutual, she has called him her "mentor", also spoke out in support of Anthony after his conviction. Crockett is retiring from the seat Haynes now seeks, and her public alignment with the killer's cause raises obvious questions about the political culture she is handing off.
The retiring congresswoman went so far as to imply that Austin Metcalf bore some responsibility for his own death, a claim that must have landed like a gut punch for the Metcalf family.
Haynes, described as Crockett's "longtime spiritual mentor," is now carrying that same torch from the pulpit to a congressional campaign. His church is her church. His worldview is her worldview. And if he wins in November, as he is expected to, given the district's heavy Democratic lean, that worldview will have a seat in Congress.
The Anthony sermon is not an isolated episode of poor judgment. Haynes has a documented history of inflammatory statements that would sink most candidates in a competitive race.
On October 8, 2023, one day after Hamas attacked Israel and killed 1,200 people, Haynes delivered a sermon accusing Israel of waging "apartheid" in Gaza and effectively suggesting Hamas acted in self-defense. He told his congregation, as captured in a Facebook video:
"I recognize that we gotta be pro-Israel... or we get in trouble. Well, I'm coming to get in trouble."
He has called Farrakhan, a man who praised Adolf Hitler and compared Jews to "termites", a "wonderful and great man." He describes himself as a "mentee" of Jeremiah Wright, the Chicago pastor whose "God d*** America" sermon created a political firestorm for Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Anti-Israel groups have rallied behind Haynes's candidacy. American Priorities, PAL PAC, and A New Policy PAC, formed by former State Department official Josh Paul, have all supported him. CAIR Action, the campaign arm of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, has endorsed him. Kamala Harris, the former vice president, has been described as a "longtime friend."
Haynes also carries personal baggage from his years leading Friendship-West. In 2009, his executive assistant Elizabeth Payne accused him of firing her over an affair she struck up with Jeremiah Wright after Wright visited the church. Payne suggested in court filings that Haynes may have been conducting an affair of his own, claiming she had opened mail addressed to Haynes that contained a photo of a topless woman.
Haynes stated in a deposition that he was "not interested" in reading the explicit emails Wright, who was married, had sent to his assistant. The outcome of Payne's lawsuit is not publicly detailed in available records.
None of this has slowed his march toward Congress. His campaign did not respond to the Free Beacon's request for comment on the Father's Day sermon.
Frederick Haynes III is not just a fiery preacher. He is asking voters to send him to Washington. That means his public statements, from the pulpit and everywhere else, deserve the same scrutiny applied to any candidate.
He looked at a convicted killer who stabbed a 17-year-old to death and saw a "little boy" and a "friend." He looked at a jury that included people of color and called it "all non-black." He looked at a judge's ruling rejecting claims of racial bias in jury selection and declared the system rigged anyway. He looked at a prosecution doing its job, presenting the facts of a fatal stabbing, and called it disgusting.
His Republican opponent, Everett Jackson, faces long odds in a deep-blue district. But the voters of Texas's 30th deserve to know exactly who is about to represent them, and whose judgment they are trusting with a congressional vote.
Austin Metcalf's family buried a 17-year-old. Frederick Haynes used Father's Day to mourn the man who killed him. That tells you everything about where his sympathies lie, and where they don't.
