Sean Taylor dead at the age of 24.

[cparkfresh]

Alright, I guess my question now would be how the

could you be dumb enough to try and rob the same person twice? Even if they thought the home was vacant, does it really seem like a good idea to try again after they "failed" the first time and it was made very public?

Happens all the time... I had a friend who got robbed. The thieves could not get the big screen out. So they came back 2 weeks later and tookit.

 

[kiddin like jason]

Happens all the time...
To a superstar athlete?

That's the point I was trying to make.

 

[dyyhard]

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=251964564

wardlow's myspace....he's all about paper. other people's paper....

 

[TheGift23]

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

November 30, 2007


STATEMENT FROM DANIEL M. SNYDER

ON THE ARRESTS IN THE SEAN TAYLOR CASE

"This is another step, but not a conclusion, in a very personal and painful tragedy. The police have done a wonderful and professional job in quickly making arrests. I thank them for keeping us informed and involved from the very beginning.

"I also want to thank everyone who has joined us in mourning the loss of Sean. People from all over the world contacted the ******** to share our grief and offer their prayers for Sean and his family.

"We will never forget the courage his family, especially Jackie, Pete and Donna, have shown. Their composure has been a source of strength for us all."

 

[TheGift23]

Spoke to one ******** veteran who did not want to use his name at this time as he gathers more information, but he was in disbelief.

"Why would you go back and hit the guys house? It's crazy. Crazy. Sean had nothing to do with this. He didn't do nothing bad. Just a random thing. Man, this is crazy. This is going to be an emotional weekend. It's just going to be rough man."

Had a brief conversation with DT Cornelius Griffin, who was not aware of the news of the arrests and circumstances until I told him. "That's crazy, that's crazy," he said repeatedly as I explained this situation. "I know his sister must feel pretty bad right now. It's sad, man."

Another ******** starter just sent me a text: "This makes me sick. Simply didn't have to happen."

When I spoke to Griffin Tuesday night he was among the players who said there is no way Sean would have put his family in danger had he any inkling something like this was planned. It's just such a shame.

You can't help but wonder. If his knee was okay, if he had been okay to travel with the team, so many lives would have changed. If Sean had that alarm engaged - and Sean's family friend Richard Sharpstein has said it most likely was not on because Sean had been generous in allowing friends of his sister and girlfriend to stay at the house at times - maybe these kids just immediately retreat. There is just no way to rationalize the senseless violance that permeates our culture, all the lives lost in this fashion everyday, all the blameless victims and families torn apart by it.

There is going to nbe a profound sadness in that arena at FIU Monday. I don't even want to think about it.

[h3]http://blog.washingtonpost.com/*******sinsider/?hpid=topnews
[/h3]

 

[Deleted member 38182]

^that might be a stretch...im not to concerned with it though.
I just got done ordering my jersey...
i have a feeling it'll get cancelled though.
Sad this had to happen to such a changed man.
May his soul Rest In Peace

 

[sole lovely]

Originally Posted by K8be wan Kenobi

the sad thing is, if he was armed and shot the guys to protect his family, nobody would understand. the headlines would have been "Thug Sean Taylor murders teenage boys, violated probation with possession of a firearm for the 13th time"

so true....

 

[cparkfresh]

To a superstar athlete?

That's the point I was trying to make.
Believe it or not superstar athletes get robbed too. The kids probably did not think he was home.

 

[sole lovely]

so ST jerseys are on sale again on nflshop?

 

[thetruth03]

that might be a stretch
No it aint..

As the details come out its just making it worse and worse..

at these dumb @ss lil N's.. prolly was some dudes that would smilein his face and **** ride in person.. Then tried to LICK the dude.. 17 years old? kids are pathetic these days..

 

[aepps20]

Originally Posted by K8be wan Kenobi

the sad thing is, if he was armed and shot the guys to protect his family, nobody would understand. the headlines would have been "Thug Sean Taylor murders teenage boys, violated probation with possession of a firearm for the 13th time"

I told my grandfather this same thing today. Not to mention guys like Whitlockand O'Reilly would be quick to talk about hip-hop and the thug mentality and how Sean should've called the cops.

 

[TheGift23]

The family of one of the suspects speaks....

http://video.ap.org/v/Legacy.aspx?g...fg=copy&f=flmih

Go to "Suspect's Family speaks out"....

 

[wallyhopp]

damn.. why even speak out. youll be hated on forever now no matter what. its best to just go hide out

 

[jaydubh11]

In life, and in death, Taylor was a natural mystery

---

By Elizabeth Merrill
ESPN.com


MIAMI -- The school is not what it seems. It sits on 30 acres of manicured land near condos and bird-watchers. The folks at Miami Douglas MacArthur South,an alternative high school full of inner-city kids and at-risk teenagers, have a saying: Even good kids can make bad decisions.

Nobody really knows why Sean Taylor showed up one day in February. He was like that, often leaving people guessing. He'd done speaking gigs at schoolsaround the Miami area as penance for one of his own questionable decisions, but this trip was voluntary.

He was supposed to talk for an hour, and stayed for three. And when the young NFL star who seemingly had finally figured it all out finished his spiel aboutstaying on a straight path, at least two young men vowed to stay in school, just like Taylor.

"They were really taken by him," says Steve Rummel, the former principal at MacArthur. "They said, 'I'm going to college. I can dothis.'

"He touched a lot of them."

Eight months later, Rummel struggles to explain how a 24-year-old man who by all accounts was trying to avoid trouble found it in his home early Mondaymorning, gunned down while his fiancée and 18-month-old daughter hid under the covers. He's trying to figure out why Sean is gone.

Many of the details of Taylor's death, much like his life, remain a mystery. Shock jocks and hair-sprayed pundits chalk it up as a cautionary tale of athug life spiraling to a violent end. Police say he may be the random victim of a robbery gone bad.

Taylor's friends are left to try to fill in the holes and defend the memory of a man whose true identity, to most, reveals itself in old replay videosof bone-crushing hits.

"He didn't grow up in some neighborhood where there were drugs being sold on the streets," says former NFL linebacker Ralph Ortega, whocoached Taylor in high school. "Sean didn't grow up stealing bicycles or running around with some gang.

"He was an extremely clean-cut, well-mannered kid. And that's what I remember. If there's another truth, fine. But I'd like to hear it fromsomebody who was really there."

---

Gulliver Preparatory is not in the 'hood. Kids wear uniforms and drive Lexuses and BMWs past a guard shack that protects them from the grit of the city.Enrique Iglesias and a nephew of George W. Bush went to school here. Some of them matriculate to Harvard, others chase grass-stained dreams. Gulliver pridesitself on getting its best and brightest ready, and the price isn't cheap. The school's Web site lists its tuition range from $7,000 to $24,000.

It also considers itself a melting pot of youthful opportunity (the school offers athletic scholarships), which is why the son of a Florida police officer,middle-class at best, could fit in with the doctors' kids and young diplomats.

It didn't hurt that Taylor was 6-foot-3, fast and feared. Legend has it Taylor hit a kid so hard once in high school that the boy's helmet, the facemask and the screws, fell apart. He had gifts that Ortega, maybe biased, says eventually would have made him the standard for all NFL safeties. Taylor ledGulliver to its first and only state championship in 2000. His teammates were together on a trip one night, playing NCAA Football on their PlayStations, whenone of them said, "Hey man, someday you're going to be on this game."

Taylor, modestly embarrassed, told the kid to shut up.

"He wasn't cocky, you know, that wasn't him," says former Gulliver teammate Greg Bellamy. "You were drawn to a good vibe.

"He's very charismatic," Bellamy says, still referring to his friend in the present tense. "Very easy to be liked."

His life was a series of contradictions. Maybe Taylor liked it that way. He was tough and intimidating and could level 200-pound receivers on the footballfield, but when he went water-skiing with his more privileged friends, he was afraid of the seaweed.

He giggled with his buddies about girls, but met Jackie Garcia in high school, took her to the prom, and their relationship endured three years at theUniversity of Miami and 3½ seasons in the NFL.

And unlike many tough-luck stories of south Florida athletes who struggle to get out, Taylor seemingly had stability in his home, with a father who is theFlorida City police chief.

They gathered at his house at 5 in the morning in high school, a handful of bleary-eyed teenage football players, because Taylor's dad promised he couldmake them better. He ran them up and down the streets of south Miami, their arms stretching to touch the back of a basketball hoop.

One Gulliver alumnus credits the elder Taylor with helping him get a football scholarship by showing him how to shave a few tenths of a second off his40-yard dash through hard work.

When reporters camped out at Pedro Taylor's house this week, scrounging for a sound bite or a morsel of an answer, the Gulliver boys at first didn'tknow who they were talking about. They always knew Taylor's dad as "Pete."

Pedro Taylor's calming, half-smiling face is shown on the Florida City Police Department Web site, on top of a "Message from the Chief." Itsays his staff is dedicated to making Florida City the safest play to work and live.

"In public, he's remarkably strong," says family friend Mark Sinnreich. "He's a deeply religious man. He thinks God and Jesus have abigger plan for Sean."

---

No, Sean Taylor did not grow up in the ghetto. But he didn't have to wander far to find trouble. It was just a few miles away in West Perrine, animpoverished area in the Village of Palmetto Bay where broken glass and stray shopping carts litter the streets and worn-out rags hang on clotheslines.

There are varied opinions about the exact time when Taylor's reputation plummeted from hardworking son to just another troubled athlete from Miami. Hewas known to occasionally spit on his opponent, but friends say Taylor did it because he was taught in youth football that paybacks were mandatory.

He was quiet and distrustful of the media, but that didn't necessarily sully his image.

Hanging out in West Perrine did. Taylor was a celebrity, a first-round draft pick for the Washington ******** and an $18 million man. One day in 2005 heparked a pair of brand-new all-terrain vehicles in front of a friend's house in a sketchy neighborhood. They were stolen, and Taylor lost his cool.

An ensuing confrontation with a group of young men boiled over to guns and threats, and Taylor's SUV was sprayed with bullets. He eventually faced threeaggravated assault charges and the possibility of more than 40 years in prison.

The case was high on drama -- prosecutor Michael Grieco resigned after Taylor's lawyers said he was using the fame to promote his side gig as anightclub DJ -- but low on punishment. Taylor pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge and was given 18 months probation. He agreed to speak to 10 schools onthe importance of education and donated money to each institution. He stayed away from guns. His only mode of protection in the late-night hours on Sunday wasa machete that he kept under his bed. His former lawyer, Richard Sharpstein, still maintains that Taylor was a victim in the case.

But what was a man who seemingly had it all doing in West Perrine? A friend who declined to be named says Taylor spent his first couple of years in the NFLtrying to shake hangers-on from his childhood. He described them as people who weren't necessarily friends but wanted to hang around with an NFL star forhis fame and money.

In an interview with reporters in Arizona this week, Cardinals cornerback Antrel Rolle, a friend of Taylor's since they were 6 years old, said someformer friends were out to get Taylor, who was trying to live a more stable life by focusing on his girlfriend and daughter.

"...I know he lived his life pretty much scared every day of his life when he was down in Miami because those people were targeting him," Rollesaid.

Roughly a year ago, Sharpstein had a conversation with Taylor about getting out. He was settling in as one of the ********' marquee players and had anin-season home in Ashburn, Va. Why couldn't he just take Jackie and the baby and move to D.C.?

"But he loved Miami," Sharpstein says. "I don't think I ever had a serious, 'You must move from Miami, Sean,' talk. It was justsort of like, 'Stay out of the old neighborhoods and don't let people set you up,' stuff like that. 'You're going to be taken advantage ofbecause you're rich and people are jealous of you.'"

---

In the middle of the 2006 season, Taylor did move. He quietly packed his belongings and retreated from a rowdy, young end of the ********' locker roomto a spot next to Renaldo Wynn's stall. Taylor never really told Wynn why he did it.

His new locker was in the middle of hard-core veterans, God-fearing men with scars and wisdom about the ways of the NFL. Wynn was considered a clubhouseleader, a defensive end with a wife and kids and a mother who was a schoolteacher for more than 30 years. When Taylor parked in their end of the locker room,Wynn made a joke about how he was moving from the ghetto to the other side of town.

"Hey man, just needed a change," was all Taylor said.

He was always doing things that even his teammates didn't understand. Like the time he got up and walked out of the rookie symposium early, drawing a$25,000 fine. Outside, maybe Sean Taylor didn't make sense. But on the football field, everything did.

In these days of last memories and unanswered questions, friends flash back to Taylor on the football field before practice, in the cold rain, smiling. Henever complained, they say. He was just happy to be in the one place he could be under a helmet and reveal himself.

"He was radiant, you know?" says ******** offensive coordinator Al Saunders. "One of those really popular guys you loved to be around. Sopositive, so energetic. You enjoy coaching when you have an opportunity to be around someone like that. They make the game, make the day, soenjoyable."

Wynn, who is with the Saints now, finds comfort in the laughs. He thinks about the time Taylor was ejected in the playoffs for spitting and stewed in thelocker room, where Wynn's mother was waiting while her son was being worked on by the trainers.

She doted over Taylor, who was about to explode. She said, "Baby, it's going to be OK." For months after that, Taylor would ask Wynn how hismom was doing.

"I think he got it when a lot of guys don't get it," Wynn says.

"You could definitely notice the change. It was quite extreme. He always talked about his daughter. He always talked about stuff that was just aboutlife. He'd say, 'I'm like a sponge trying to suck up as much wisdom as I can.'"

---

They met at Gulliver Prep on Wednesday morning, old friends and young faces, to say goodbye to Taylor.

Bellamy, a hulking former lineman who's now an assistant coach at Gulliver, rocked back and forth as tried to maintain his composure and sum up a manwho was ultimately not what he seemed.

Sometime Monday, Bellamy's mom called to tell him Taylor's house had been broken into. Bellamy assumed his friend wasn't home because offootball. But Taylor didn't make it to the game at Tampa Bay because of a knee injury.

They'd see Taylor pop in occasionally at Gulliver to visit, and when he'd leave, young men would ask Bellamy what they needed to do to be the nextSean Taylor. That, he can answer. But like everybody else, he's haunted with questions.

"I was kind of wanting to have a conversation with him," Bellamy says. "I didn't get to tell him how much the kids really look forward tohim coming down. That's the one thing I kind of regret.

"I wish I would've known he was in town."
Elizabeth Merrill is a senior writer for ESPN.com. She can be reached [email protected].

---

 

[gunna get it]

bruh,dont take it personal, I just dont understand why its far fetched to think someone that is doing a home invasion would be carrying some sort of weapon.

for @ 35 pages of this thread and another 15 or so of another thread, people have been giving credence to this notion planted in their heads by theirresponsible media, Sean taylor's death s was some sort of retaliation by someone in his past or that "people shouldnt be shocked if he brought thisupon himself" with absolutely no eveidence or proof of it bein that way.

 

[thetruth03]

for @ 35 pages of this thread and another 15 or so of another thread, people have been giving credence to this notion planted in their heads by the irresponsible media, Sean taylor's death s was some sort of retaliation by someone in his past or that "people shouldnt be shocked if he brought this upon himself" with absolutely no eveidence or proof of it bein that way.
Word.. craftsy

 

[akf0dy7]

quick question, if Sean Taylor had been rehabbing in VA, would his GF and daughter had been in that Miami home alone or do they travel everywhere with him?

 

[ryguy384]

idk if anyone has said this yet, but ESPN is saying they got 4 ppl arrested and atleast 2 confessions. One of the 4 is the shooter. They were expecting andunoccupied house, not looking to kill.


RIP Sean Taylor

 

[franchise3]

Originally Posted by Kiddin Like Jason

Happens all the time...

To a superstar athlete?

That's the point I was trying to make.

That's the thing though.

It was Sean Taylor's house.

They knew this, and knew the kind of $$$ he had in his house, by dealing with ST's brother and sister.

So since they didn't get what they wanted the first time, they came back for the big score.

Knowing again, that there was probably a lot of $$$ in the house.

 

[mustbetheshoe58]

those 4 men needs to be penalized by justice.

 

[somethingdunk]

Originally Posted by TheGift23


The family of one of the suspects speaks....

http://video.ap.org/v/Legacy.aspx?g...fg=copy&f=flmih

Go to "Suspect's Family speaks out"....

*!*% THEM!!! WATCHING THAT VIDEO PISSED ME OFF!

 

[akf0dy7]

Originally Posted by K8be wan Kenobi

i just did some reading up around the internet. the appropriate charge will be felony-murder. thats when a murder occurs in the process of committing a felony (burglary). in the state of Florida, for felony-murder there is no "intent" or the triggerman getting more years than the accomplices. ALL people involved get the same sentence: life with no parole.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_punishment_for_a_felony-murder_in_florida

these 4 teens basically just threw their life away.. one day one of them woke up with a bright idea to get some $$$, the next day they'll be sitting in prison looking at 60 years ahead of them of sitting in a jail cell and then dying, knowing they will never accomplish a thing in life.

Kind of sad to know that these dumb kids took the life of an innocent man, and i think it only seems fair that ALL four of these kids get life.

 

[dyyhard]

*!*% THEM!!! WATCHING THAT VIDEO PISSED ME OFF!


there is genuine emotion from the family in the video - esp the mom. Of course they are going to protect their brother, without knowing the full details andthe media hounding them. Wouldn't you? I feel for the mother, she is devastated...she raised or tried to raise her son the right way and may/may not havemade her own mistakes - guilt may be coming into the picture.
Look, their poor decisions caught up to them, and they are making everyone suffer, from you, me - all of ST's fans/friends, his family and now their ownfamilies....anyone who respects/values humanity is hurt (yes even the authorities who have to deal with this -- they see this everyday --- read you local crimeblotter, news headlines). Why? in their short life, the may have lost that very thing we cherish - to respect/value humanity. So now it's up to justice tosee if these kids(some are adults, but they don't deserve this title) should have their privileges taken away to live in the "civilized" world--- the one you and me want to live in, and wished ST could live in with his family. And when, you take a step back - you breath, shake your head and onceagain realize that it was senseless and didn't have to happen.

''They're kids -- and knowing Sean, if they needed money, he probably would have given it to them. They didn't need to break into his home and kill him to get it,'' said Steve Howey, Taylor's former high school football coach at Gulliver Prep.

no money is going to bring ST back..no money is going to ease the hurt, yet, somehow these kids thought it was the solution to their ills.

 

[cquan05]

ST gave his life to save 2 others........imagine if he hadn't been there and it was just his fiancee and their baby

Unless they stayed in Washington with him, but those dudes deserve what they're gonna get comin' to em behind bars.........wonder how long they'lllast

 

[doublejs07]

But man knowing what actually happened makes me feel worse about this whole thing.


co-sign....flat out these punks got scared. Dude was prolly screaming like a girl when he saw Sean Taylor coming out w. a machete. I think whoever did theshooting was "blindly" shooting. Probably running, and not looking where the shots went. The fact that they came back for the 2nd time in a matterof days shows how idiotic they actually were. They messed up their lives for NOTHING. They're gonna get theirs in jail... and you know what the scary thingis? Say Sean Taylor wasn't in the house and just his fiancee and daugher were. Those fools come in busting down the door to the bedroom and obviously thereare screams from ST's family. It could have been much worse. This man died protecting his family from some straight up cowards.