More Thoughts on the Death of Sean Taylor

* Clinton Portis gave a tremendous interview Tuesday on The John Thompson Show on Washington's Sportstalk 980 where he talked about the death of one of his closest friends. Portis talks about his last conversation with SeanTay, what Taylor did on the last day of his life and what went through his own mind when he heard knocking on his hotel room door at 5:00 a.m. Tuesday morning. He also tells some great stories about his good friend. If you want a better sense of what was lost when Sean Taylor passed away, listen to the whole thing.
Living in D.C., you'd think that this wide-ranging, 20 minute interview would have been a big topic of conversation, as most people have been waiting for player reactions on this tragedy (particularly from SeanTay's closest friends like Portis and Santana Moss). Yet, for some reason, nobody seems to have heard about this. I didn't until my buddy Ben called me and told me to find it online. If you're a 'Skins fan, it's a must-listen. Even if you're not, I recommend it.

* Miami police publicly stated their belief that Taylor was the victim of a random burglary. From the Associated Press:

Miami-Dade police director Robert Parker said Wednesday there were no indications the slain 24-year-old was targeted or knew his assailant."
There's nothing that indicates thus far that there's some kind of involvement on the victim's part," said Parker, adding it was "more like a random event."
Police have no suspects in the fatal shooting.
"We have no reason to think this was anything other than a burglary or a robbery involving an intruder," Parker said.

This seems to be a remarkably naive statement on its face. How can the police jump to such an unlikely conclusion publicly? I see only three possible reasons. Please remember, I'm not saying this is what is happening, I'm merely speculating about why police would be so quick to call this act random:
1) It's a self-fulfilling prophecy and the police are setting themselves up for failure. They might think that this case will be difficult to crack, so by setting the bar low in public, they wont look like hacks when they can't find the murderer.
Nobody likes to mention this, but prominent cases of (likely) black-on-black crime often go unsolved. I'm thinking of the murders of 2Pac, The Notorious B.I.G., Jam Master Jay and Darrent Williams, in particular. Somebody knows who killed those people. They weren't committed by a single person in secret like most public unsolved murders. Yet, police never arrested anybody for those crimes. Why? That's a topic for somebody who knows a lot more about the subject than I do. However, I expected this crime to go unsolved the minute I heard about it. After 58 hours, I'm even more sure.
(I realize it seems I'm making the rather large assumption that Sean Taylor's murderer is blacks, but I'm not. In the United States, 94% of all black murder victims were killed by people of their own race. The white/white number is 86%, by the way.)
2) Digging deeper into this situation might mean uncovering some information about Sean Taylor that could tarnish his memory. This theory is propelled by the fact that SeanTay's father, Pedro, is the chief of police of Florida City and probably holds some sway in the murder investigation.
3) Police are lulling the murderers into a false sense of security.
I'm not saying any of these three things are true, but they're the only possible reasons I can think of that the Miami police would make such a bold, logic-defying statement about the randomness of Sean Taylor's house getting broken into twice in eight days. When you factor in the knife that was left on SeanTay's bed during the first break-in (where, by the way, nothing was taken), the odds of both these incidents being random reach dizzying heights.

* I've written this twice already, but it's worth repeating: Jason La Canfora's Redskins Insider blog at WashingtonPost.com has been the absolute best resource available for news, reaction and insight into this tragedy. I've kept a tab with Insider open in my Firefox browser since Monday morning and have probably refreshed it a couple hundred times. Even with my incessant reloading, I was still amazed how often La Canfora updated the site with new information. La Canfora and The Post deserve a great deal of credit for their coverage over the past three days.

* Maybe I shouldn't be, but I'm a little surprised that the Redskins game this Sunday against Buffalo is still on the board in Vegas. I'm even more surprised that the line hasn't changed since Sunday (Washington is favored by 5.5). Doesn't the emotion of the day make this game unbettable? I don't know. (By the way, I think the 'Skins will be keyed-up on Sunday and will play hard in SeanTay's honor. By next Thursday's game against Chicago, I think they'll be emotionally and physically beatdown.)

* The Onion, as always, deftly maneuvers the fine-line between tragedy and comedy with their article: Report: NFL Had Previously Warned Sean Taylor About Spending Quiet Evenings Alone at Home.