NFL star Sean Taylor squeezed a doctor's hand from his hospital bed Monday evening, giving his tense, exhausted family reason for hope after a daylong ordeal that began when Taylor was shot by an intruder at his Palmetto Bay home.
''I am happy, I am hopeful, but I really don't know what else to say,'' his mother, Donna Junor, said in a telephone interview.
Miami-Dade police said that just after 1:45 a.m. Monday, Taylor and his girlfriend were startled awake by noises in his sprawling home on Old Cutler Road.
The pro football player grabbed a machete from underneath his bed and went to investigate.
He didn't get far. An armed intruder fired at least one shot. Taylor tumbled back into the bedroom, critically wounded in the groin, said lawyer Richard Sharpstein.
After emergency surgery Monday, Taylor was fighting for his life, said Sharpstein, who represented the Washington Redskins safety and former University of Miami All-American in a 2005 criminal case.
Taylor's one-story, pale-yellow house, which he bought in 2005 for $900,000, is protected by a white wall with black gates, and a buzzer controls access. Its alarm had not been activated Monday, a police official said, even though someone had broken into the house and rifled through Taylor's possessions eight days earlier. That intruder left a kitchen knife on a bed.
After Monday's shooting, Taylor's girlfriend tried to call police from the house line, only to discover the line had been cut. She had to use her mobile phone to call 911, which delayed response time, said Redskins Vice President Vinny Cerrato.
''This was a deliberate attack,'' Cerrato said.
About 20 family members and friends gathered at Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center in Miami, where Taylor was airlifted.
His father, Pedro Taylor, the police chief of Florida City, said Monday night that his son needed ``much prayer.''
''I got the call around 2:10 this morning,'' Pedro Taylor said. 'I thought it was a station call, and then one of my majors, he said, `Your son, he's been shot.' I almost didn't believe it. . . . It's been very tough, as a father, as a friend, as a person, you never want to see anyone in life ever hurt.''
Sharpstein said Taylor, 24, remained unconscious in intensive care for hours after surgery, his brain at risk of injury from massive loss of blood.
Lt. Nancy Perez, a spokeswoman with the Miami-Dade Police Department, said police have been unable to talk to Taylor. The gunman remained on the loose.
Police said Miami-Dade patrol officers received the call that Taylor had been shot about 1:45 a.m. Monday.
Among the first responders was George Mira Jr., who lettered as a linebacker at UM from 1984-87 and is now a fire batallion chief. Detective Juan Villalba, a Miami-Dade police spokesman, said police were interviewing relatives who were potential witnesses.
Sharpstein said the couple's baby daughter was also in the bedroom and slept through the shooting. The gunman fled immediately after firing.
''Nothing was stolen. They shot at him and fled,'' Sharpstein said.
Only eight days before, according to police records, someone had broken into Taylor's house between 7 p.m. Nov. 17 and midnight Nov. 18. The intruder, who pried open a front window, entered several rooms and rifled through drawers and a safe in the bedroom.
No one was home at the time; the police report says it was unknown whether anything was taken. In that incident, someone left a kitchen knife on a bed, the police report says. Damage to the A/C vent in Taylor's bathroom was observed, the report said.
Retirees Pat and Jim Smith, who live next door to Taylor, said they heard voices outside about 2:30 a.m. Monday. Outside, Jim Smith talked to a woman with a baby in her arms who he believes is Taylor's nanny. She mentioned the previous break-in.
''I am going to make sure my gun is loaded,'' Jim Smith said. ``We never did have any problems here.''
Taylor, a graduate of Gulliver Preparatory School in Pinecrest, was chosen by the Redskins as the fifth pick overall in the National Football League's 2004 draft.
He signed a seven-year, $18 million contract after his junior year at UM, when his nine interceptions were the most in the Big East Conference and second in the nation.
At UM, he was an All-American, a Jim Thorpe Award finalist for best defensive back in the nation and the Big East Defensive Player of the Year.
This season, he was sidelined indefinitely Nov. 11 when he sprained his right knee against the Philadelphia Eagles. The Redskins lost to the Buccaneers in Tampa on Sunday.
Cerrato, Redskins owner Dan Snyder and running back Clinton Portis flew on the owner's plane to Miami on Monday.
''Our hearts and prayers go out to Sean and his family,'' Snyder told The Associated Press. ``We appreciate very, very much the outcry of support.''
UM officials also weighed in, saying ``this is a terrible thing to have happened to a great person, and our thoughts and prayers go out to his family, friends and teammates.''
Taylor is no stranger to controversy.
Before he was drafted, he was rebuked by the NFL for leaving the league's mandatory rookie symposium early, and drew a $25,000 fine.
He was arrested in June 2005 on felony charges of waving a gun at people he believed had stolen his all-terrain vehicle. He later pleaded no contest to misdemeanor assault and battery. Sharpstein said Taylor was the victim and that he should not have been charged.
After the plea, Ryan Lee Hill, a member of the group that Taylor had allegedly accosted, sued Taylor. In the suit, which is pending, Hill claimed Taylor hit him repeatedly in a fight and brandished a gun at him, and said he had lost wages and had medical bills because of injuries.
''Totally garbage and untrue,'' Sharpstein said Monday of Hill's account.
After the fight, Taylor, friend Michael McFarlane and a man named Charles Caughman went to McFarlane's house in West Perrine, according to court records of the incident. Soon afterward, a silver car pulled up to McFarlane's house and someone opened fire, peppering Taylor's GMC Yukon Denali with bullets. Police found 27 bullet casings outside, and at least 15 shots hit Taylor's car. No one was hit, and the shooting remains unsolved.
McFarlane has since moved out of the small ranch home on Southwest 104th Avenue. The current renter on Monday showed a visitor bullet holes that remain over a front window.
Taylor's cousin, Florida State University safety Anthony Leon, said Taylor was trying to shed some troublemaking friends he had grown up with. Leon, who said he spent his morning crying and praying in his dorm room, said Taylor had ``started to calm down.''
''He's been trying to stay away from bad company -- especially for his daughter's sake,'' Leon said. ``Sean wasn't a bad guy at all. He's got his personality on the football field and off it. All he was trying to do was protect his family. And they shot him.''
Miami Herald staff writers Patricia Mazzei, Manny Navarro, Evan S. Benn and Susannah A. Nesmith contributed to this report.
