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Tuesday November 27, 2007

A rising American football star was killed after being shot during a break-in at his mansion.

Sean Taylor, 24, was sleeping with his girlfriend and baby when an armed intruder entered his Miami home in the middle of the night.

It is thought the Washington Redskins star confronted the gunman and shots were fired – one of them hitting him in the groin.

The shot severed the femoral artery, causing massive blood loss. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he gave family and friends some hope after showing some signs of response to doctors’ instructions.

But he died in the early hours of Tuesday, a day after the shooting.

Grieving relatives and friends could be seen literally falling to the ground in tears outside the hospital.

The incident has left the sports world and the wider US public in shock.

“This is just such a tragic, horrible, unnecessary death — another example of the incessant violence in this city and this country,” Richard Sharpstein, Taylor’s attorney, said.

According to reports, Taylor and his girlfriend were startled awake by noises in his sprawling home in the early hours of Monday morning.

Taylor grabbed a machete from underneath his bed and went to investigate, but he didn’t get far.

An armed intruder fired at least one shot. Taylor tumbled back into the bedroom, fatally wounded in the groin, his attorney Richard Sharpstein said.

The couple’s baby daughter was also in the bedroom and slept through the shooting. His girlfriend was unhurt. The gunman fled immediately after firing. “Nothing was stolen. They shot at him and fled,” Sharpstein said.

He said that on Tuesday morning Taylor’s father “called and said he was with Christ and he cried and thanked me.”

Police have few leads. But eight days earlier Taylor’s house was broken into, with an intruder leaving a knife on a bed.

Taylor had recently moved from college to professional football as one of the highest rated young players in the country.

The defensive back, who was recovering from an injury, signed a seven-year GBP9m with the Redskins in 2004.

He was also a controversial character, having been fined by the sport’s body for bad behaviour and once charged over a fight that is said to have led to his car being peppered with bullets.

But friends said he was a changed man since the birth of his daughter.