A controversial fundraiser set up for an alleged track meet murder has raised an astonishing amount of money.
On April 2, 17-year-old student Austin Metcalf was allegedly murdered at a track meet in Frisco, Texas.
The American attended Memorial High School and died as a result of a deadly stabbing at the event.
Shortly after, a official fundraiser was controversially set up in support of 17-year-old suspect Karmelo Anthony, and it has now raised a huge amount of money.
After his arrest, Anthony was released from jail on bond after lawyers reduced his bail from $1million.
The 17-year-old reportedly admitted to police that he killed Metcalf, but claims it was in self-defence, after being charged with first-degree murder.
In response to his arrest, an official fundraiser supporting Anthony was set up on crowd-sourcing site GiveSendGo.com.
After several weeks of regular donations, the fundraiser has now raised over $515,000 (£385,487) of the $600,000 goal legal expenses and other urgent needs.
Due to the controversial and sensitive nature of the fundraiser, other major crowd-sourcing websites, such as GoFundMe and Kickstarter, decided not platformed a campaign for Anthony.
But GiveSendGo co-founder Jacob Wells has expalined why he and his leadership team have stood by the decision to keep the fundraiser on the website.
“How proud am I of this campaign? I don’t, I wouldn’t say I’m proud at all,” Wells told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview.
“I have no pride in having this being on GiveSendGo. I just have appreciation for what GiveSendGo is doing in the midst of these tragic moments, which is standing on principle, which is loving people even in the midst of very hard and dark places.
“There will always be people who are donating for the wrong reasons, on any campaign. There are people that believe the best way forward is racial division. That’s what they believe. So they’re going to stoke the flames of racial division however they can,” Wells added.
“When you live in free societies, which we do, there’s a price to pay, and that is it allows for some people to do things that might not be good. And I think people do that all the time.”
Ben McCrum