Emma Ruby
Audio By Carbonatix
One of the loudest voices stirring racial conflict in North Texas is in the Dallas County jail after being arrested on Tuesday.
Jake Lang is charged with making a terroristic threat to place the public in fear of serious bodily injury, interrupting public services, or influencing a government following his repeated appearances at rallies outside of the Collin County Courthouse in McKinney over the course of the Karmelo Anthony murder trial. He was seen around the courthouse holding signs reading “White Lives Matter” among other things over the past week.
According to jail records, Lang’s bond is set at $1 million.
According to the Dallas Morning News on Wednesday, an unnamed “representative” for Lang posted on X that Lang was removed from an airplane and [handcuffed], but did not specify from which airport the plane in question was located. “The post said Lang was arrested for saying that if the jury did not find Anthony guilty, he ‘would take care of it himself,’ the Morning News report later added. We reached out to the Dallas county sheriff with questions, who referred us to the Collin County Sheriff with our questions. Collin County referred us to the Texas Department of Public Safety and to the Collin County District Clerk. This article will be updated should we receive further information.
The Observer’s Emma Ruby was in McKinney late last week when Lang held a sparsely attended “Justice for Austin Metcalf” rally. From the scene she reported that Lang, a convicted January 6 insurrectionist who was pardoned last year for his role in the 2021 Capitol attack by President Donald Trump, used racially charged language when addressing the rally attendees days before the trial ended in a guilty verdict on Tuesday.
“Karmelo Anthony should be hanging from that tree,” he yelled at one point, before adding that if Anthony is found not guilty and is freed, Lang intends to kill him. When Anthony’s supporters, most of whom were Black, reacted in anger, Lang accused them of “chimping out,” and having “low impulse control.”
Lang’s appearances during the Anthony trial come on the heels of several other headline-grabbing outbursts of his in Collin County. In May, Lang, who is not a Texas resident, threatened Frisco City Council members during a contentious meeting while discussing the amount of immigrants and Indian residents the county has welcomed in recent years.
