Two interesting articles, and a few other points

[dcweldon]

I know that a lot of us are still shocked from Monday night's tragedy, but I saw these two articles, in the last 10 minutes, that I thought were interesting.

One is from ESPN.com, from Cardinals CB, Antrel Rolle
ESPN - Childhood friend Rolle thinks Taylor was targeted - NFL

Basically, Rolle says that Sean's death was not a random act and that someone wanted to hurt him because these former friends of his were angry that Sean was distancing himself from them.

What makes seeing this even worse is to read this:
Grieving Redskins try to move on; police suspect random burglar killed Taylor - NFL - Yahoo! Sports

where the headline reads "...police suspect random burglar killed Taylor"
it almost seems that the Miami Police (i am trying not to jump the gun on their efforts by saying this) are just pushing this homicide case into the "unknown" bin.

One other point I would like to address, has been the issue that people are claiming race has been a factor in the media attention. The Jim Rome show "Rome is Burning" on ESPN had a good sit down in the "Forum" section of the show today, where a Sports Illustrated Writer and an Author (I apologize for not remembering their names) made a few points.

The author, a black man, brought up a good point, he said that the only reason why Sean Taylor's race has come into play, is because of his background. His example was that, if you were to compare Tracy McGrady (of the Houston Rockets in the NBA) and if this same situation had occurred to him, that people would look at his background, and say, well Tracy never had a run in with the law, and race would be most likely thrown out. In Sean's case, because his background is in question, that is why people are looking at his race.

Either way, I don't think that race should be a factor, I agree with Antrel Rolle on the fact that it was probably someone who knew him. The Miami police cannot say that a knife found in his bed weeks earlier was not a message, and if Sean's girlfriend's statement about a man opening the door and firing a shot, literally into the dark, then this guy was sent there to send a message to Sean.

A professional athlete or not, stuff like this is what brings our country down, and if we as a people want to make an example of something like this, then now, on a national scale, the Miami Police should use this media attention to show how they are attacking these situations of gang related crimes, premeditated murders, etc.