Sean Taylor and the Quest for Appropriate Punishment

Four Arrested in Death of Sean Taylor

I'm glad they caught these guys. I'm glad one of them has already confessed. I hope they're punished appropriately. (I realize "appropriately" means different things to different people but I don't want to re-start the always ugly disagreement that Dan and I have over the death penalty.)

I do have a few small questions, however, and I hope some really smart prosecuting attorney questions the same things.

1) Why, if the 4 would-be burglars planned this home invasion around the premise that Sean Taylor was going to be away at the time they entered his home, did they carry a gun?

2) Did they think they had pre-knowledge that Jackie, his girlfriend, and Jackie, his daughter, were also going to be out of town playing in a football game? Because if not, then they already knew there was a better than average chance that someone, although maybe not Sean, was going to be home sleeping. That makes it even more sinister, in my humble opinion. Who breaks into a home knowing that only a young woman and a small child are going to be there?

3) Why, if their only intention was burglary, did they not leave the house immediately when they heard the bedroom door being locked? Obviously if a person is locking himself in he has no intention of coming back out. They'd have had more than enough time to make an escape before the police department was notified and on the way if they'd left as soon as they heard a noise and realized someone was home instead of continuing on their merry thieving way. Not only did they not try to beat feet and leave, they went to the opposite extreme, kicking in the bedroom door and firing two shots directly at Mr. Taylor. I don't know about you, but this does not sound like a bunch of kids out to do nothing more than steal a few valuables.

And finally:

4) If this story is to be believed, at least two of the suspects had personal ties to Sean Taylor. Apparently Sean's sister dates (or has dated) a cousin of one of the suspects and he's been to at least one party at Sean's home and another of the suspects cuts Taylor's lawn and does other odd chores around the house for him. Having that sort of working-relationship with the owner of a house means that, at the very least, the would-be burglar could have, without attracting much suspicion, called the house with some bullshit story about wanting to come 'round and cut lawn, pick up sticks, dig up dirt or whatever it is handy-men are hired to do. Why wasn't that easily accomplished and not-hard-to-figure-out phone call made before the "nobody home, let's rob the place" plans were implemented and carried out? How many brain cells would making that one small, confirming phone call have taken?

And lastly, why - why would you bite the very hand that feeds you unless, of course, it really was personal?

As a recently married, middle-aged mother of grown children with a nice safe cushy job who's living in an upscale suburb of Washington D.C., I'm turning pretty mellow nowadays. I'm also a fairly recent convert to the idea of strict gun control, and like all fairly recent coverts to anything, I'm pretty gung-ho over the idea. However, I gotta be honest, the South-Side Chicago Ghetto-Child who still resides inside of me understands that the outcome of this whole thing most likely would have been entirely different had Sean Taylor kept a loaded shotgun instead of a shiny machete hidden under his bed.

But that's blood-lust and spectulation. Justice after-the-fact and appropriate punishment is all that's really left.

I have a son exactly the same age as Sean and a grandson just a wee bit older than Sean's baby, Jackie. I'm not talking street justice here, I'm talking mother justice, and I know exactly what sort of justice this particular mother finds sufficient.