Sean Taylor dies

[HairOnFire]

Yeah, I agree, it sounds like there's more to this than meets the eye. Especially considering reports that there had been a previous break-in in which a knife was left on Taylor's bed. That sounded like some kind of message/warning from someone who's watched The Godfather a few too many times.

Definately more at work here than a simple break in. In fact, once the facts are known you have to wonder if Goodell would have suspended Taylor had he survived.*

*Too soon, right?

[HoosierCat]

Hoosier, I've now seen that report about an earlier break-in and a knife being left behind on several sites. Is this official? By that I mean, is the news media (CNN FOX ABC NBC etc...) reporting it? Where did you see it if I may ask?

It comes from the police report on the break-in 8 days ago, per the Miami herald:

Only eight days before, according to police records, someone had broken into Taylor's house between 7 p.m. Nov. 17 and midnight Nov. 18. The intruder, who pried open a front window, entered several rooms and rifled through drawers and a safe in the bedroom.

In that incident, someone left a kitchen knife on a bed, the police report says.

http://www.miamiherald.com/606/story/322222.html

[NYBengalfan]

This is so sad, Sean was turning his life around and those incidents he had in the past he put behind him.....hell of a football player too wih unlimited potential, and he was only getting better.

This should be a great example for Thurman and Henry, to straighten up completely.

I always liked Sean, even from when he played at the U, he played all out all the time, he left everything on the field every game. In my mind he was the best safety in the game today.

[NYBengalfan]

Yeah, I agree, it sounds like there's more to this than meets the eye. Especially considering reports that there had been a previous break-in in which a knife was left on Taylor's bed. That sounded like some kind of message/warning from someone who's watched The Godfather a few too many times.

Definately more at work here than a simple break in. In fact, once the facts are known you have to wonder if Goodell would have suspended Taylor had he survived.*

*Too soon, right?

Its a tad bit too soon, besides, he wasnt a bengal so he would not have suspended him.

[Bengals1]

Hoosier, I've now seen that report about an earlier break-in and a knife being left behind on several sites. Is this official? By that I mean, is the news media (CNN FOX ABC NBC etc...) reporting it? Where did you see it if I may ask?

It comes from the police report on the break-in 8 days ago, per the Miami herald:

Only eight days before, according to police records, someone had broken into Taylor's house between 7 p.m. Nov. 17 and midnight Nov. 18. The intruder, who pried open a front window, entered several rooms and rifled through drawers and a safe in the bedroom.

In that incident, someone left a kitchen knife on a bed, the police report says.

http://www.miamiherald.com/606/story/322222.html

Thanks!

[Dan2330]

This is a shame, I would be scared to death if I were a sports athelete right now. Up here in Chicago area over past year along two pro basketball players had their homes broken into. I can't say for sure but watching the news coverage on Taylor's house the back screen door looked like nothing at all really holding it together.

I would fully expect to see more sports stars start traveling around with bodyguards and have security companies working their houses now. I mean hell if I had the bucks like they did I would!

[HairOnFire]

This should be a great example for Thurman and Henry, to straighten up completely.

Or yet another example of why so many NFL players carry guns.

[BengalszoneBilly]

This should be a great example for Thurman and Henry, to straighten up completely.

Or yet another example of why so many NFL players carry guns.

After this I'm sure that number will greatly increase, and I support it as long as it's done legally and responsibly. Not as Chris Henry did waving one around on the street. There is one and only one reason to pull a weapon, and that is to use it when a real threat upon your life, or anothers life is upon you.

This incident also makes me wonder will NFL teams will study providing more security for their people when traveling on the road? The criminal element knows that these players are wealthy, and usually carry large sums of cash/credit cards, as well as wearing highly valuable "bling" on them where ever they go. Precautions must be taken, even though what happened to Sean Taylor doesn't seem like a typical robbery to me. Just because most NFL players possess immense size and strength does not guarantee their safety, I don't care how "bad ass" they are.

[Whur CHad At?]

We need to stop talking about how bad of a person he was on/off the field and saying "his history caught up to him". The man was murdered, he was a victim of a senseless crime. We need to think of his family, friends, teamates...not his past.

[HoosierCat]

We need to stop talking about how bad of a person he was on/off the field and saying "his history caught up to him". The man was murdered, he was a victim of a senseless crime. We need to think of his family, friends, teamates...not his past.

No one isn't thinking of his family, friend or teammates. But a "senseless" crime? It seems likely at this point there was some sort of twisted sense to the shooting, and likely that involves some link to Taylor's past.

Dan Le Batard has some thoughts in the Miami Herald here: http://www.miamiherald.com/457/story/323315.html

[COB]

It seems likely at this point there was some sort of twisted sense to the shooting, and likely that involves some link to Taylor's past.

Yep, the life probably got him. But I'll always remember Sean Taylor as the Miami player who intercepted Krenzel's 3rd quarter pass in the end zone of the 2002 National Championship game, ran it out, then got stripped by Maurice Clarrett to give the ball back to the Buckeyes. That was a major play in that game.

[Bengals1]

Dying Young, Black

By Michael Wilbon

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

If you're hoping to read about the on-field exploits of Sean Taylor, or a retrospective of his time with the Washington Redskins, it would probably be better if you cast your eyes to a piece elsewhere in this newspaper.

Seriously, you should stop right here.

Because we're going to have a different conversation in this space -- about the violent and senseless nature of the act that took his life, about trying to change course when those around you might not embrace such a change, about dying young and black in America, about getting the hell out of Dodge if at all possible.

I wasn't surprised in the least when I heard the news Monday morning that Sean Taylor had been shot in his home by an intruder. Angry? Yes. Surprised? Not even a little. It was only in June 2006 that Taylor, originally charged with a felony, pleaded no contest to assault and battery charges after brandishing a gun during a battle over who took his all-terrain vehicles in Florida. After that, an angry crew pulled up on Taylor and his boys and pumped at least 15 bullets into his sport-utility vehicle. So why would anybody be surprised? Had it been Shawn Springs, I would have been stunned. But not Sean Taylor.

It wasn't long after avoiding jail time and holding on to his football career that Taylor essentially said, "That's it, I'm out," to the world of glamorized violence he seemed comfortable negotiating earlier. Anybody you talk to, from Coach Joe Gibbs to Jeremy Shockey, his college teammate, will cite chapter and verse as to how Taylor was changing his life in obvious ways every day. He had a daughter he took everywhere. Gibbs said he attended team chapel services regularly. Everybody saw a difference, yet it didn't help him avoid a violent, fatal, tragic end.

Coincidence? We have no idea, not yet anyway. Could have been a random act, a break-in, something that happens every day in America, something that could happen to any one of us no matter how safe we think our neighborhood is. Could have been just that. But would it surprise me if it was more than that, if there was a distinct reason Taylor was sleeping with a machete under his bed? A machete. Even though his attorney and friend Richard Sharpstein says his instincts tell him "this was not a murder or a hit," would it stun me if Taylor was specifically targeted? Not one bit.

You see, just because Taylor was changing his life, don't assume the people who pumped 15 bullets into his SUV a couple of years ago were in the process of changing theirs. Maybe it was them, maybe not. Maybe it was somebody else who had a beef with Taylor a year earlier, maybe not. Maybe it was retribution or envy or some volatile combination.

Here's something we know: People close to Taylor, people he trusted to advise him, told him he'd be better off if he left South Florida, that anybody looking for him could find him in the suburbs of Miami just as easily as they could have found him at the U a few years ago. I'm told that Taylor was told to go north, to forget about Miami. I can understand why he would want to have a spot in or near his home town, but I sure wish he hadn't.

The issue of separating yourself from a harmful environment is a recurring theme in the life of black men. It has nothing to do with football, or Sean Taylor or even sports. To frame it as a sports issue is as insulting as it is naive. Most of us, perhaps even the great majority of us who grew up in big urban communities, have to make a decision at some point to hang out or get out.

The kid who becomes a pharmaceutical rep has the same call to make as the lawyer or delivery guy or accountant or sportswriter or football player: Cut off anybody who might do harm, even those who have been friends from the sandbox, or go along to get along.

Mainstream folks -- and, yes, this is a code word for white folks -- see high-profile athletes dealing with this dilemma and think it's specific to them, while black folks know it's everyday stuff for everybody, for kids with aspirations of all kinds -- even for a middle-class kid with a police-chief father, such as Taylor -- from South Central to Southeast to the South Side. Some do, some don't. Some will, some won't. Some can, some cannot. Often it's gut-wrenching. Usually, it's necessary. For some, it takes a little bit too long.

A recently retired future Hall of Fame NFL player called me the day Taylor was drafted by the Redskins, essentially recruiting a mentor for Taylor, somebody who knew D.C. well enough to tell Taylor what and who to avoid. The old pro thought Taylor wasn't that far from a pretty safe path but was worried about the trouble that can find a kid here in D.C., and certainly in Miami. The old pro had all the right instincts, didn't he? Taylor was only 24 when he died yesterday morning and from all credible accounts he seemed to be getting it in the last 18 months or so. But it's difficult to outrun the past, even with 4.4 speed in the 40. Running away from the kind of trouble we're talking about is harder than running in quicksand.

It's senseless and tragic either way, much in the same way Len Bias's death was senseless and tragic, and sparked so much examination, much of it resented. I drove to Redskins Park yesterday morning and left rather quickly. It was way too much like the aftermath of Bias's death. We, the media, were camped out. Teammates walked in, not wanting to say anything, understandably. Some things are eerily similar. Bias was 22. Each had been with his institution, Bias at Maryland and Taylor with the Redskins, for four years. Everywhere you went in D.C. yesterday, Taylor was the conversation. And people of a certain age, from Dulles International Airport to Georgia Avenue, talked about how they were reminded of Bias's death. For many of us it's a defining moment in our lives.

Of course, there are enormous differences. We were so much more innocent in June 1986, and Bias's death was a complete shock. There was no warning, no hint that he had ever courted danger or that it had ever gone looking for him. And Bias, though unintentionally, harmed himself. Taylor, no matter what he might have been involved in at one time, was a victim in this violent episode, a man in his bedroom minding his own business.

But what they do share is dying too soon, unnecessarily so, while young and athletic, seemingly on top of the world. Though we're likely to struggle in great frustration to understand the circumstances of how Taylor left so soon, how dare we not put forth an honest if sometimes uncomfortable effort to examine his life in some greater context than football.

[Kazkal]

I would fully expect to see more sports stars start traveling around with bodyguards and have security companies working their houses now. I mean hell if I had the bucks like they did I would!

So Tank Johnson was just ahead of everyone else?

PS,FTL Morbid internet posters.

[BengalszoneBilly]

So Tank Johnson was just ahead of everyone else?

I said legally and responsibly. He was neither.

[HoosierCat]

Antrel Rolle thinks Taylor was killed by a former friend...

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/102923

[BengalszoneBilly]

Antrel Rolle thinks Taylor was killed by a former friend...

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/102923

I just read this on the Cardinals board, and with him being shot in the groin, I'm inclined to believe it. A robbery shooting would have been focused on the upper torso or head.

[HairOnFire]

Robbery? Aren't we talking about the house being broken into three times in a little over a week....with nothing stolen?

[The PatternMaster]

Hey vultures, until the FACTS come out can we leave the all of the Jr. Columbo / CSI Cincinnati stuff alone...let Sean Taylor rest in peace, all of this is not going to bring him back nor are the Miami police detectives checking Bengalzone.com for leads so yeah, let the guy rest in peace.

[HoosierCat]

Cops in Miami still think it was a botched robery (at least that's what they're saying publicly). The local mayor terms it "unusual and disagrees. Not much of anything for the cops to work with yet...they continue to appeal to the public for help...

http://www.miamiherald.com/548/story/324797.html

[redsbengalsbucks]

Dying Young, Black

By Michael Wilbon

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

If you're hoping to read about the on-field exploits of Sean Taylor, or a retrospective of his time with the Washington Redskins, it would probably be better if you cast your eyes to a piece elsewhere in this newspaper.

Seriously, you should stop right here.

Because we're going to have a different conversation in this space -- about the violent and senseless nature of the act that took his life, about trying to change course when those around you might not embrace such a change, about dying young and black in America, about getting the hell out of Dodge if at all possible.

I wasn't surprised in the least when I heard the news Monday morning that Sean Taylor had been shot in his home by an intruder. Angry? Yes. Surprised? Not even a little. It was only in June 2006 that Taylor, originally charged with a felony, pleaded no contest to assault and battery charges after brandishing a gun during a battle over who took his all-terrain vehicles in Florida. After that, an angry crew pulled up on Taylor and his boys and pumped at least 15 bullets into his sport-utility vehicle. So why would anybody be surprised? Had it been Shawn Springs, I would have been stunned. But not Sean Taylor.

It wasn't long after avoiding jail time and holding on to his football career that Taylor essentially said, "That's it, I'm out," to the world of glamorized violence he seemed comfortable negotiating earlier. Anybody you talk to, from Coach Joe Gibbs to Jeremy Shockey, his college teammate, will cite chapter and verse as to how Taylor was changing his life in obvious ways every day. He had a daughter he took everywhere. Gibbs said he attended team chapel services regularly. Everybody saw a difference, yet it didn't help him avoid a violent, fatal, tragic end.

Coincidence? We have no idea, not yet anyway. Could have been a random act, a break-in, something that happens every day in America, something that could happen to any one of us no matter how safe we think our neighborhood is. Could have been just that. But would it surprise me if it was more than that, if there was a distinct reason Taylor was sleeping with a machete under his bed? A machete. Even though his attorney and friend Richard Sharpstein says his instincts tell him "this was not a murder or a hit," would it stun me if Taylor was specifically targeted? Not one bit.

You see, just because Taylor was changing his life, don't assume the people who pumped 15 bullets into his SUV a couple of years ago were in the process of changing theirs. Maybe it was them, maybe not. Maybe it was somebody else who had a beef with Taylor a year earlier, maybe not. Maybe it was retribution or envy or some volatile combination.

Here's something we know: People close to Taylor, people he trusted to advise him, told him he'd be better off if he left South Florida, that anybody looking for him could find him in the suburbs of Miami just as easily as they could have found him at the U a few years ago. I'm told that Taylor was told to go north, to forget about Miami. I can understand why he would want to have a spot in or near his home town, but I sure wish he hadn't.

The issue of separating yourself from a harmful environment is a recurring theme in the life of black men. It has nothing to do with football, or Sean Taylor or even sports. To frame it as a sports issue is as insulting as it is naive. Most of us, perhaps even the great majority of us who grew up in big urban communities, have to make a decision at some point to hang out or get out.

The kid who becomes a pharmaceutical rep has the same call to make as the lawyer or delivery guy or accountant or sportswriter or football player: Cut off anybody who might do harm, even those who have been friends from the sandbox, or go along to get along.

Mainstream folks -- and, yes, this is a code word for white folks -- see high-profile athletes dealing with this dilemma and think it's specific to them, while black folks know it's everyday stuff for everybody, for kids with aspirations of all kinds -- even for a middle-class kid with a police-chief father, such as Taylor -- from South Central to Southeast to the South Side. Some do, some don't. Some will, some won't. Some can, some cannot. Often it's gut-wrenching. Usually, it's necessary. For some, it takes a little bit too long.

A recently retired future Hall of Fame NFL player called me the day Taylor was drafted by the Redskins, essentially recruiting a mentor for Taylor, somebody who knew D.C. well enough to tell Taylor what and who to avoid. The old pro thought Taylor wasn't that far from a pretty safe path but was worried about the trouble that can find a kid here in D.C., and certainly in Miami. The old pro had all the right instincts, didn't he? Taylor was only 24 when he died yesterday morning and from all credible accounts he seemed to be getting it in the last 18 months or so. But it's difficult to outrun the past, even with 4.4 speed in the 40. Running away from the kind of trouble we're talking about is harder than running in quicksand.

It's senseless and tragic either way, much in the same way Len Bias's death was senseless and tragic, and sparked so much examination, much of it resented. I drove to Redskins Park yesterday morning and left rather quickly. It was way too much like the aftermath of Bias's death. We, the media, were camped out. Teammates walked in, not wanting to say anything, understandably. Some things are eerily similar. Bias was 22. Each had been with his institution, Bias at Maryland and Taylor with the Redskins, for four years. Everywhere you went in D.C. yesterday, Taylor was the conversation. And people of a certain age, from Dulles International Airport to Georgia Avenue, talked about how they were reminded of Bias's death. For many of us it's a defining moment in our lives.

Of course, there are enormous differences. We were so much more innocent in June 1986, and Bias's death was a complete shock. There was no warning, no hint that he had ever courted danger or that it had ever gone looking for him. And Bias, though unintentionally, harmed himself. Taylor, no matter what he might have been involved in at one time, was a victim in this violent episode, a man in his bedroom minding his own business.

But what they do share is dying too soon, unnecessarily so, while young and athletic, seemingly on top of the world. Though we're likely to struggle in great frustration to understand the circumstances of how Taylor left so soon, how dare we not put forth an honest if sometimes uncomfortable effort to examine his life in some greater context than football.

This article is totally bias, there are young kids of all colors and backgrounds that make bad choices in thier youth that pay the price for it later in life. It is a shame that Taylor was shot down when it seems as if he had finally decided to grow up and make the right choices for himself and his family. To even imply this happened because he was black or hung around black friends is disgusting.

[Bengals1]

This article is totally bias, there are young kids of all colors and backgrounds that make bad choices in thier youth that pay the price for it later in life. It is a shame that Taylor was shot down when it seems as if he had finally decided to grow up and make the right choices for himself and his family. To even imply this happened because he was black or hung around black friends is disgusting.

You know the man who wrote it is black himself, right?

[redsbengalsbucks]

This article is totally bias, there are young kids of all colors and backgrounds that make bad choices in thier youth that pay the price for it later in life. It is a shame that Taylor was shot down when it seems as if he had finally decided to grow up and make the right choices for himself and his family. To even imply this happened because he was black or hung around black friends is disgusting.

You know the man who wrote it is black himself, right?

Like that makes a difference! It is still wrong to imply that race had anything to do with it.

[Bengals1]

Like that makes a difference! It is still wrong to imply that race had anything to do with it.

The murder rate regarding black against black crime is staggering, amongst if not "the" highest in the country. Where there's smoke there's usually fire. You can bury your head in the sand if you like but that's the awful shame of it.

And it's not going to go away by pretending it doesn't exist or calling anyone of any color who points it out or has the courage to write about it a bigot.

[redsbengalsbucks]

Like that makes a difference! It is still wrong to imply that race had anything to do with it.

The murder rate regarding black against black crime is staggering, amongst if not "the" highest in the country. Where there's smoke there's usually fire. You can bury your head in the sand if you like but that's the awful shame of it.

And it's not going to go away by pretending it doesn't exist or calling anyone of any color who points it out or has the courage to write about it a bigot.

Choices, not skin color, determine your life!!

Good choices are much harder in some cultures/environments but they are still options for any individual.

It does not take courage to blindly state that a young black man is predetermined to violence, it takes courage to call out this way of thinking as completely wrong and let all the children growing up know that the choices they make will impact thier lifes.

[Bengals1]

... it takes courage to call out this way of thinking as completely wrong and let all the children growing up know that the choices they make will impact thier lifes.

And I believe he touched on that in his article.