It’s not often that we opinion/editorialists get an opportunity to once again make the case for politically correct media bias. It’s an opportunity I relish, and this time I may have a good case.

Please allow me to revisit the saga of Fort Worth’s very own Chante Mallard. This story hasn’t been "newsworthy" since March 7th when it first broke, and for some strange reason we haven’t heard much about her since.

Now before I get into the details of Chante’s transgression, listen to the words of her attorney, Mike Heiskell, and see if you haven’t heard this hot air before:

"She is not the monster that police and prosecutors are making her out to be. She was simply a frightened, emotionally distraught young woman who had an accident, panicked and made a wrong choice."

I betcha’ Gregory Biggs would disagree.

However, Gregory Biggs is dead.

According to Chante, she had been drinking and using ecstasy (that helps her case…) one night last October and while driving home, she just happened to hit a man with her car. The violent contact hurled him headfirst through the windshield, his broken legs jutting out onto the hood.

She said she panicked, and with the man lodged in the windshield of her 1997 Chevrolet Cavalier, she drove a few miles to her home. There, she parked her car in the garage and lowered the door. Although Gregory Biggs begged for help, she offered him no assistance. She left him there, head and torso caught in the windshield of her car, bleeding and slowly going into shock.

Mallard told Fort Worth police she sporadically went into the garage to "check" on Biggs. She said she apologized in earnest for what she had done but ignored his plea for help. I guess the apologies helped her sleep better those nights. The police said evidence indicated that he could have been alive two or three days before succumbing to his injuries.

Two or three days….

"She is not the monster that police and prosecutors are making her out to be. She was simply a frightened, emotionally distraught young woman who had an accident, panicked and made a wrong choice."

Biggs’ body was found in a park on October 27th. He had suffered cuts and broken legs, but had no internal injuries that would have caused his death, according to the medical examiner's office. The police suspected he had been indeed been hit by a car, but had no leads until a tipster came forward months later.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit, the woman who tipped police said she, Mallard and several other women were at a party Feb. 15, 2002 when Mallard brought up the accident. While describing the story, she giggled and remarked that after the accident she had sex with a friend at her home.

According to the affidavit, Mallard told the women that she waited a couple of days for Biggs to die before two male friends expunged his body and dumped it in a nearby park. She said she planned to torch the car and buy a new one after she received her income tax refund.

Police searched her house and found her Chevy Cavalier still parked in the garage. Its two seats had been removed and were found in the back yard, one of them burned. Fort Worth police Lt. David Burgess said they are also investigating inconsistencies between what Mallard is said to have admitted at the party and what she told police after her initial arrest Feb. 26 for failure to stop and render aid.

"We don't know how much of that is embellished, how much of that was girl-talk," Burgess said. "Is she (Mallard) scared and not telling us the truth now or is she embellishing what had been said at the party. Probably somewhere in the middle is the truth."

Chante now faces a wrongful death lawsuit. The suit, filed by Brandon Biggs, 19, claims that the 25-year-old nursing aide’s "grossly negligent actions" led to his father's death.

Mallard was charged with murder, and jailed on $250,000 bond. She faces a sentence of anywhere from five years to life in prison, if found guilty by her peers, for the untimely death of Gregory Glenn Biggs.

"She is not the monster that police and prosecutors are making her out to be. She was simply a frightened, emotionally distraught young woman who had an accident, panicked and made a wrong choice."

Funny, I haven’t heard much about this story since March.

Now if Chante were a black man who was hit by a white woman, the pity party would still be set in motion once her trial hits Court TV. But if Chante were a black woman hit by a white man, the excrement would hit the blower.

It would have been the lead story on all major news media. Chante’s would be the next Matthew Sheppard, uniting feminists, civil rights activists, and celebrities seeking the new hot cause. Any number of politicians would bring up the incident during their one-minute speeches on the floor of Congress.

She would have been a victim of a hate crime. Her assailant’s name would now be household and she would be likened to James Byrd.

But she has a lot going for her in politically correct America 2002.

She is black and she killed an unimportant white man. She will not be charged with a hate crime: "blacks cannot be racist since they have no power". So this story has been essentially buried. It’s not newsworthy enough for CNN. It won’t interest the anchors of the big three. I’m just waiting for Mallard to hire Johnnie Cochran who will then tell us that the Forth Worth police planted Biggs in the windshield to frame her.

Now I’m not saying that Chante Mallard had racist intent when she hit Biggs. But she sure had a major case of disregard, and the lack of national outrage is not the fault of callous fellow citizens, but a media with an agenda that is willing to look the other way.

Chante is getting her fair trial. The amount of pre-trial publicity has been minimal, and thus can be controlled.

She will appear from her jail cell in sympathetic interviews with Barbara, Katie, Paula, Greta, and if her luck holds out, Oprah. She will be the victim. She will cry. Oprah may too. The media will turn this into a black/white issue instead of what it is: a homicide. The National Organization for Women may appeal to our better judgment since this is a clear case of sexist, racist, prosecutorial overreach. Chante just needs to say she’s sorry to the nation and get some counseling. We shouldn’t judge her.

"She is not the monster that police and prosecutors are making her out to be. She was simply a frightened, emotionally distraught young woman who had an accident, panicked and made a wrong choice."

Now, let’s sit back and in the coming months, watch and see if I’m right….

Bob Parks