Posted on 03/13/2002 6:14:40 AM PST by Stand Watch Listen
In Texas, three white men were tried and convicted of murder for the dragging death of a black man, James Byrd, Jr. in June of 1998. Two of the men, Bill King, 25, and Russell Brewer Jr., 32, who were the ones who actually killed Byrd, were sentenced to death.
The third man, Shawn Berry, who owned the truck involved, had picked up James Byrd, walking 10 miles home from his job, as he often did for both white and black pedestrians. His action angered King, who sported racist tattoos. The indictment clearly showed that Berry was threatened with the "same treatment" when he attempted to stop the murder. At one point he even ran away from the scene and it was Berry who immediately contacted authorities about the murder. Many witnesses, both black and white, testified he was not a racist. Yet, to satisfy organized groups screaming for blood, Berry was sentenced to life imprisonment for the horrible murder.
In the Presidential election campaign of 2000, the Byrd murder became an issue used against Republican candidate George W. Bush. The National Voter Fund, (a project of the NAACP) and the Human Rights Campaign launched ad campaigns that inferred Bush was somehow responsible for the Byrd murder.
A daughter of James Byrd, Rene Mullins, was shown accompanied by a picture of a truck and a chain saying: "I'm Renee Mullins, James Byrd's daughter. On June 7, 1998, in Texas, my father was killed. He was beaten, chained, and then dragged three miles to his death, all because he was black. So when Governor George W. Bush refused to support hate crimes legislation, it was like my father was killed all over again. Call George W. Bush and tell him to support hate crimes legislation. We won´t be dragged away from our future."
Yet, in October 2001 another vehicle dragging death took place in Texas. Chante (or Shantae) Mallard, described it in her own words to a friend, giggling, simply as, "I hit this white man." This time the driver of the vehicle was a black woman and the man dragged to his death was a white man, 37 year old Gregory Glenn Biggs. Whether or not Mallard, a nurse´s aide, hit the "white man" by accident or on purpose has not been asked, apparently. However, she did not stop her car and render aid but continued driving with Biggs pinned in the windshield until she got to her home and into her garage.
In this case, the NAACP and the Human Rights Campaign have not said a word about a white man being "dragged to his death, all because he was white." In fact, it took longer for Mallard to kill Biggs, who was alive and begging for help for two days, than it took Bill King and Russell Brewer, Jr. to kill Byrd. According to Mallard´s testimony in a March 7, 2002 affidavit after one of her friends alerted the police, the injured man was "sticking halfway into the passenger compartment through the windshield." She "went inside, had sex with her boyfriend, Terrance, went out to the garage and the man wasn´t dead yet, but he was dying. Shantae stated that the man was asking them to help him, but that they just walked back inside. Shantae advised that they waited until he died, which was a couple of days."
After he died, the affidavit says, "Terrance and his brother took the body and dumped it in Cobb Park" where it was found on October 27, 2001.
According to the Fort Worth, Texas Star Telegram, "Mallard agreed to go to the police station for questioning. There, she gave a statement and was arrested for failure to stop and render aid. She was free on bail when officers arrived at her home Wednesday morning and arrested her on the upgraded warrant charging her with murder. Later in the day, she was released on a $10,000 writ bond."
Her attorney, Mike Heiskell called the woman's arrest on a murder warrant premature. "I think this is overreaching on the part of the prosecution and the police, and in the end, I believe the law will shake out that this was simply a case of failure to stop and render aid.
After the judge increased the $10,000 bail to $250,000, in apparent response to community outrage in Fort Worth, Heiskell was quoted as saying prosecutors have blown some aspects of the case out of proportion and that the victim was probably in the garage only 24 hours. He said his client was devastated by the accident and went into a panic.
"She is not the cold, harsh, inhumane person they would have you think," Heiskell said. "This girl is not a monster."
Really? What else would you call a person who would leave another human being impaled in glass to bleed, suffer and die for two days and DO NOTHING? If Mallard had been a white woman and Biggs had been black, considering the national clamor over James Byrd, I suspect that the NAACP and the Human Rights Campaign would be calling her a lot worse things than "monster." And, what about her accomplices to Biggs murder? Terrance certainly is far more involved in the Biggs killing than Berry was in the Byrd killing –and Berry is in jail for life. Why hasn´t Terrance been arrested for murder? Why isn´t there a national clamor about the death of Gregory Biggs at the hands of a group of conspiring black people? Why is no one suggesting the death penalty for what appears to be a racially motivated murder of Gregory Biggs? Would Mallard and her friends have left a black man impaled in glass for two days until he died?
It would appear from Heiskell´s statement and the media response that it is OK to torture and kill white people these days. Apparently, it´s a race crime only when the dead person is black.
Strangest thing. No one ever mentioned she was black, and he was white. How about that.
Unless you have been hiding in a cave in Afghanistan for the past thirty years or so, you know the above statement is true. Didn't you know that only White people can commit hate crimes because White people have "The Power." I was discussing this very fact last night with Colin Powell, Condi Rice, Michael Jordan, Bill Cosby and Oprah Winfrey. < /sarcasm>
Seems like 'standard operating procedure (SOP) for the media these last twenty years or so.
Everyone knows that the "white devil" (a.k.a. "the Man") is keeping the black man down! >/sarcasm<
But, but, but ...she did check on him for two days and she did apologize. Sheesh, what kind of standard are you imposing here? </sarcasm>
To pose the question is to answer it.
Who is the Governor of Texas now? He should pardon this man. What a travesty of justice. No one will ever be a Good Samaritan if, taking this as an example, they will wind up being blamed for the crime.
"To pose the question is to answer it."
It is no big deal because the white race in America has gotten used to taking it across the face. Kill a white man? Other whites yawn and turn the channel. Kill a black? Blacks have organized and their leaders take to the streets. Does anyone here see the difference?
The sheriff said that Tillery was white and the four men in Blake Little's truck were black. "It's too early in the investigation to tell whether it was racially motivated, but it's still very much under investigation," Maddox said. He said Tillery was visiting a Jasper trailer park Friday night when he began looking for a ride home and the four offered Tillery a ride home after agreeing on a price of $5 for gasoline. But the sheriff said the price for gas went up during the trip, first to $25 and then $50 by the time the group arrived in Pineland. "They went by his house, but didn't drop him off because they were going by the gas station," said Maddox. "They got to the gas station, and that's when Tillery tried to depart by running." The truck's occupants chased Tillery along Farm-to-Market Road 2426 and a scuffle ensued. Tillery was apparently held captive before he was run over, investigators said. "The evidence at the scene did not look like an auto-pedestrian accident," Maddox told the Houston Chronicle in Monday's editions. He said there were no skid marks. Little, 34, of Jasper was arrested Sunday on murder charges. Investigators believe both drugs and alcohol were involved in the case. James Byrd Jr. of Jasper died 3½ years ago when he was chained at his ankles behind a pickup truck and dragged for nearly three miles along a bumpy country road until he was dismembered and decapitated. In that case, Byrd was black and the men in the truck were white. Little's father said he did not believe in a possible relationship between his son's death and the Byrd slaying, which he also doubted was racially motivated. "You've got so many innuendoes out that you don't know what to believe," Richard Tillery said of his son. "Personally, I just think it was a case of him not having any money or drugs." Pineland is about 130 miles northeast of Houston and about 20 miles north of Jasper. (Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Perhaps the ACLU could sue the State of Texas for the cleaning bill and the repairs on her car, the white man had it coming, the nerve of him being in front of her car.
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