Sean Taylor's Slayng; Police Don't Suspect Family

From my desk in the news room, I watched the live news conference on Wednesday of Miami-Dade Police finally addressing the media and all the questions surrounding the slaying of Redskin's Star Sean Taylor in his Miami home early Monday.

The tough question came from Nine News Now Reporter Bruce Lashan; but it was on the minds of every journalist on this story.

Any reason to believe this was a domestic incident? The Chief appeared tight lipped...as though he resented the insinuation. No! They have no reason to believe this was anything but a random act by an intruder who broke into Sean Taylor's home.

There you have it. To be more blunt. Miami-Dade Police do not believe that Sean Taylor's finance killed him during a domestic struggle.

They also made clear they do not believe Sean Taylor contributed to his own death through some dispute outside his home and career with the Washington Redskins.

Police made an appeal for the public's help; which says to me they haven't found anything in the home to lead them to a killer. Whoever did this has gotten away....at least for now in a city where a code of silence has seen a number of people get away with murder.

A Times magazine-CNN article out Wednesday reminds us that Sean Taylor is but the latest athlete from the University of Miami to succumb to violence. The article says that some people have begun to call it the curse of the Canes.

Here's an excerpt from Time Reporter Tim Padgett's article:

"A year ago this month senior Hurricane defensive lineman Bryan Pata was shot in the head and killed outside his apartment near UM's Coral Gables campus shortly after a practice. Four months earlier safety Willie Cooper was shot in the buttocks outside his Miami home. A year before that, former defensive end Jerome McDougal was shot in the abdomen in Miami in his new Mercedes just weeks before reporting to training camp for the Philadelphia Eagles. (Cooper and McDougal survived.)

In 1996, linebacker Marlin Barnes was bludgeoned to death in his campus apartment. Four years earlier Shane Curry, an Indianapolis Colts defensive lineman and former UM star, was shot in the head and killed during an argument in a Cincinnati lounge parking lot.

In 2003 Al Blades, 26, a former UM safety, was killed when the car he was riding in — and which witnesses say was racing another at high speeds — crashed into a Miami canal. A year before that 'Canes linebacker Chris Campbell, who had just finished his last UM season, was killed when his speeding car struck a tree in Coral Gables."

In the NFL. Pro Bowl wide receiver Michael Irvin (UM Class of 1988) almost had his brilliant career derailed with the Dallas Cowboys when he was arrested in 1996 for cocaine possession, busted in a motel suite while sharing the coke with women he called "self-employed models." (He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation.)

Pro Bowl linebacker Ray Lewis (who left UM in 1996) was arrested in 2000 for alleged involvement in the murder of two men outside an Atlanta nightclub. The murder charges against Lewis were eventually dropped.

But such incidents highlight how Hurricanes alumni pioneered the kind of off-field legal trouble so many NFL players are known for today. Taylor, who in his short NFL career was fined at least seven times for infractions like late hits during games (once spitting in an opponent's face), was arrested in 2005 for threatening with a gun a group of people he accused of stealing his all-terrain vehicle. He later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault charges. Shortly after the altercation, Taylor's SUV was sprayed by bullets in a drive-by shooting, although no one was injured.

Miami Herald sports columnist Linda Robertson wrote this week that Taylor's shooting death "will reinforce negative opinions of football fans and recruits who were wary of UM and Miami." To their credit, the university and its president, Donna Shalala, are trying to clean things up.

The recruiting standards of most major college football programs are a cynical joke when it comes to scholarship and character; UM football is known for being less scrutinizing than most 17th-century pirate vessels. But when former Hurricanes coach Larry Coker in 2004 recruited a Miami teen, linebacker Willie Williams, whose arrest record was longer than his high school transcript, Shalala intervened and demanded the high school All-American meet certain academic and behavioral standards before stepping on the field. Williams transferred to another school instead.

Still, the troubles continue. In 2006, 13 Hurricanes players were suspended after a vicious on-field brawl and Coker actually had to set a team policy that players not own or carry firearms. Coker (who arrived at UM in 2001) has since been fired, replaced by former UM linebacker Randy Shannon. Under Shannon, whose hiring has been widely applauded by observers like Lapchick, there have so far been no embarrassing incidents. Unfortunately, there haven't been many wins either; the 'Canes have had two straight losing seasons and haven't won a National Championship since 2001. "

Funeral service for Sean Taylor will be held early next week. Redskins players will wear his number 21 on their helmets and jerseys for Sunday's home game at Fed-Ex field against the Bills.

The entire team and Redskins organization will fly to Miami for the funeral.