Commentary: Blinded by the Lure of Stolen Bling, Sean Taylor’s Killers Took His Life – and Ruined Theirs
Date: Wednesday, December 05, 2007
By: Tonyaa Weathersbee, BlackAmericaWeb.com
I feel pity for the guys who killed Sean Taylor.
Not mercy toward them, mind you, but pity. It’s a pity that I feel for the scores of young, misguided black males who have been fooled into believing that their futures are worth far less than a few trinkets that they can grab by resorting to criminality.
Sadly enough, it looks like that might be the mentality -- I don’t deign to call it a strategy -- that guided the four suspects who are accused in Taylor’s slaying while trying to burglarize his suburban Miami home Nov. 26. They didn’t expect for the 24-year-old Washington Redskins safety to be there, and when he surprised them, he wound up being shot in the leg and groin.
The gunshot severed Taylor’s femoral artery. He died from the bleeding a day later.
Police have said that the four suspects -- two of whom are juveniles -- didn’t visit the Pro Bowl star’s house with murder on their mind, but theft. Yet if they are found guilty, they all may wind up spending the rest of their lives in prison.
Under Florida law, if someone dies during the commission of a felony, everyone involved can be charged with murder -- regardless of who pulled the trigger.
I doubt if the suspects who broke into Taylor’s home would have taken the time to read the law, though. If one is to believe Richard Sharpstein, Taylor’s former attorney, and reports by The Miami Herald, they were too blinded by the promises of stolen bling to see how they would wind up stealing Taylor’s life -- and their own futures.
Sharpstein said that at least one of the suspects had attended a party at Taylor’s home, while the Herald reported that another did yard work and chores for him. Another suspect is the cousin of a man that Taylor’s sister, Sasha Johnson, dated.
So they figured they’d rather steal from Taylor than aim for wealth in their own lives. Instead of being inspired to plan for their own success and to live well after seeing the football star’s home, they were inspired to commit a criminal act.
Things didn’t always work that way.
There was a time when black people who worked in the homes of wealthy whites used that exposure to dream and to plan, not to commit acts that would get them locked up. The fact that young black men like the ones accused in Taylor’s slaying no longer do that says a lot about the hopelessness and the lack of vision that governs too many of their lives today.
It’s a hopelessness that says it’s cooler to steal from someone like Taylor than to start a lawn service, or go back to school, to obtain the preparation they need to live well.
Instead, they’d rather risk a murder charge, a burglary charge or any other felony charge just for some designer clothing, jewelry or other items that have, in all likelihood, been either deteriorating or depreciating from Day One.
Again, it’s not worth it.
There’s also another sobering sadness here, the one that says that it’s risky for NFL players like Taylor be as down-to-earth as they’d like to be. To have parties for family members, or to share their largesse with old friends could become a dicey proposition, as those friends might have friends who steal.
As I said earlier, I don’t feel mercy for the suspects. The life of yet another young black man has been snuffed out, gone because some other young black men decided to plot a felony instead of planning their lives.
But I do feel pity for them. Pity because, like so many others, they squander their smarts on acts that won’t lead to real success, but to prison and the statistic books. Pity because for some reason, they continue to waste their lives and the lives of others for material things and to settle scores that, in the long run, aren’t worth it.
They know the cost of bling, but they don’t know the value of their future. And I can only hope that at some point, more of them will stop being blinded by it long enough to learn.
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