This weekend, the National Football League will take the time to honor Sean Taylor, the Washington Redskins' pro-bowl safety who was shot and killed in his home early Monday morning, with moments of silence before every game.
The 24-year-old Taylor died Monday night in a Miami hospital following hours of unsuccessful surgery to repair damage caused by a gun shot wound.
The Miami-Dade Police reported that Taylor was sleeping at home with his girlfriend and 18-month-old baby daughter when noises downstairs in the home woke them. Taylor locked the bedroom door and grabbed a machete he keeps for protection.
Before anything else happened, the door was broken down, and the intruder fired two shots, one embedding itself in a wall, the other striking Taylor. His girlfriend, who said she hid under the bed covers, called 911 and Taylor was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital where he died a day later.
Currently, police have announced no suspects and have no reason to believe the murder was anything more than random.
The story Monday was Taylor clinging to life in critical condition, doctors worried about possible brain damage due to significant blood loss. After his death early Tuesday morning, the media immediately began analyzing the situation.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement, "This is a terrible tragedy involving the loss of a young man who leaves behind many people struggling to understand it."
That morning's broadcasts centered around the incident itself, mostly informing the public, but by Tuesday evening, America's most opinioned sportswriters made their voices heard.
The alarming consensus among sports media personalities was one of shock but not surprise. Shock at the loss of one of the NFL's premier young defenders but no surprise that it was Taylor. Since being the fifth overall pick in the 2004 NFL draft, Taylor spent his first two years in the NFL seemingly in constant trouble. The league and the Redskins have fined him at least seven times, and in 2005, he was accused of brandishing a loaded gun at a man in a confrontation over some allegedly stolen all-terrain vehicles. He served 18 months probation for that incident but has behaved following his daughter's birth in May of 2006.
Nationally syndicated columnists Michael Wilbon and Leonard Shapiro of the Washington Post both cited Taylor's past filled with troubled behavior when defending their lack of surprise. "Whether this incident is or isn't random, Taylor grew up in a violent world, embraced it, claimed it, loved to run in it and refused to divorce himself from it," Wilbon said in an online chat Monday afternoon.
Reading whatever I could find on the issue, I'm still without my own perspective. Did Taylor have a history of violent and dangerous behavior? Absolutely. Had he cleaned up his act to become a responsible father? It appeared that way.
Taylor's childhood friend, teammate at the University of Miami and current Arizona Cardinals' cornerback Antrel Rolle admitted to media that he thought Taylor had been a target.
"He lived his life pretty much scared every day of his life when he was down in Miami," Rolle said, "They say it was a burglary. It was absolutely not a burglary."
About a week before the shooting, someone had broken into Taylor's home and left a kitchen knife on his pillow, according to the Miami Herald.
I don't know Taylor's life. I don't know what it was like for him, if he was indeed living in fear of his past. I don't know if his murder was in fact a consequence of a random burglary or a targeted killing.
Taylor was undoubtedly the victim of something unthinkable, but his laundry list of past indiscretions and the previous week's break in makes it harder for me to believe his death was the result of a random burglary.
His girlfriend and daughter were left in the room unharmed, and police haven't reported anything stolen from the house. All the circumstances considered, this incident screams personal.
Like the masses, I'm shocked at the loss of one of football's brightest young stars, a young man who seemed to grow up a lot in the last two years. I'm shocked, but I'm not surprised, as much as I want to be.
