One Fatal Night in Las Vegas

Credit: Wikipedia Commons

By Cathy Scott

This week marks the fourteenth anniversary of the day Tupac Shakur was shot.

And with the anniversary comes ESPN’s new documentary: One Night in Vegas: Tyson & Tupac. The rap star, poet and actor was gunned down just hours after watching Mike Tyson knock out Bruce Seldon at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. “(Tupac) didn't last long, but the time he did last, every minute, every tenth of a moment, was explosive," Tyson told ESPN.

Tupac was also explosive. In the minutes following Tyson’s professional fight, Tupac got into a street-like fight inside the MGM Grand as he was leaving the arena.

At the elevator bank just before the MGM’s main lobby, Tupac and his crew ran into Orlando Anderson, a known Crips street gang member from Compton, California. Tupac’s music producer, Suge Knight, who was with Tupac that night, was a known member of the rival gang Mob Piru.

When he spotted Anderson, Tupac said to him, “You’re from the South,” meaning South Compton. And the fight was on. Tupac, Suge and their entourage stomped and kicked Anderson. A security guard split them up, but Orlando, when Las Vegas police arrived, declined to press charges. The officers did not file a police report and did not even take Orlando’s last name. It would be Compton gang cops, a few days after the shooting, when Las Vegas police realized the scuffle might have significance, later offered up Orlando’s full name. They also offered up Orlando's lengthy rap sheet, gang history, and his street moniker "Baby Lane."

Backpedal a few years to 1992 after Tyson was sent to prison to serve out a sentence for rape. That’s when Tupac reached out to Iron Mike, saying he was going to be in the area and would like to visit him in prison. While they may have been an unlikely pair, both knew how to put up a fight, as evidenced later with the MGM scuffle Tupac started.

From prison, Tyson paid attention to Tupac’s thug-life image. They regularly talked on the phone. That’s when Tyson, who was a few years older than Shakur, handed out brotherly advice. Shakur told friends it meant a lot to him. “Tyson was giving me a lot of advice,” Tupac told a radio station. “I really looked up to him something hard. He’d tell me to calm down.”

But 'Pac did not appear to take it to heart. And he did not calm down. By the time Tyson was released from prison in 1995, Tupac was in jail on Rikers Island in New York, held on suspicion of a similar charge as Tyson’s, this one sexual abuse against a woman Tupac had met at a club and took back to a friend’s hotel room. Tupac was convicted and sent to the Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York.

Tupac was released on bond, posted by his record producer Suge Knight, pending an appeal. But before the appeal could be heard, Tupac was dead.

The same night as the Tyson-Seldon fight, Tupac was shot when a gunman in a white Cadillac pulled up to Tupac and Suge’s car and opened fire with a high-caliber Glock handgun, hitting Tupac several times, including in the chest. The Clark County coroner determined the cause of death as multiple gunshot wounds.

The last time Tyson would talk to Tupac would be in Tyson’s dressing room immediately following the fight. “I told him I’d see him that night and we could hang out,” Tyson told ESPN. Six days later, the 25-year-old hip-hop star was dead. Tupac’s unsolved murder has frustrated rap fans ever since, despite Compton Police (a law enforcement department which has since merged with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department) offering up Orlando Anderson as a suspect. For their part, Las Vegas police have said there wasn’t enough evidence against Orlando, and members of Tupac’s entourage were uncooperative. I began covering the case a couple of hours after the shooting, which was the topic of my book, The Killing of Tupac Shakur, and it appeared, after Anderson's name had become known, that there was motive -- the scuffle -- not to mention Compton Police's discovery of a Glock in the home Anderson lived in and Anderson bragging on his home turf that he'd killed Tupac.

But Las Vegas police, who traveled to Compton, did not formally interview Anderson and declined to arrest him. Eighteen months after Tupac was killed, Orlando Anderson was murdered in what police said was an unrelated shooting. We may never know if Orlando was, in fact, the gunman in Tupac's death.

As for Tyson, he told ESPN that Tupac’s memory lives on through his works. "He's going to last until the time this Earth comes to an end. I'm glad to be a part of his life and to have known him. (Tupac) was probably a misguided warrior. He had a heart as big as this planet. He had so much love and compassion, and you couldn't even see it under his rage." 

In the meantime, the murder of Tupac Shakur, unofficially at least, remains unsolved. 

Photo of Tyson and Tupac, courtesy of ESPN. Other photos courtesy of Yahoo! Images.

Tupac Shakur Case Revisited

Reprinted from Women in Crime Ink

By Cathy Scott

As the 13th anniversary approaches of rapper Tupac Shakur’s murder in a drive-by shooting near the Las Vegas Strip at age 25, the media come out in droves to cover it. TV news magazines started weeks ago on their pieces. All want to help solve the crime.

In the mix is the third edition of my book, The Killing of Tupac Shakur. In it, I’ve included new interviews and never-before-released information on the case, including a new interview with a detective. Also new to this edition is an exclusive interview, with first-hand background and information, with Reggie Wright, owner of Wright Way Security, the firm that provided security for Tupac’s record distributor, Death Row Records (renamed Tha Row).

Wright and his security team were on duty the night of the killing. Also interviewed for the new edition were Kevin Hackie, a cop-turned-bodyguard for Wright Way who once worked for the Compton Police Department, and Leila Steinberg, a one-time manager for Tupac.

As each anniversary rolls by, reporters invariably ask me the same question. “Will Tupac’s murder ever be solved?” And my answer has typically been, “I don’t think so.”

Now, however, new information is surfacing from law enforcement indicating that they’re looking at new information about two South Side Crips members. It appears it may be the break everyone has been looking for in the case--considered the highest-profile murder investigation in the history of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. The latest details in the investigation are also in the upcoming third edition of my book, due to drop soon.

In the many years since Tupac’s murder, much has happened. To wit, Notorious B.I.G. (a.k.a. Biggie Smalls) was killed six months later. Biggie’s murder, like Tupac’s, has not been solved. In the aftermath, others have died as well. Orlando Anderson, a Southside Crips gang member out of Compton, long believed to be the shooter in the Tupac case, was cut down in a shootout. Also dead are Jerry Bonds and Bobby Finch, who were named by Compton police as the gang members riding inside the white Cadillac with Anderson when Tupac was shot.

A fourth man, Davion Brooks--also a person of interest and widely believed to be a passenger in the Cadillac--co-ran a studio in Las Vegas called A & D Records, short for Armed and Dangerous, until 2003, when he was arrested for the federal offense of trafficking drugs to local street gang members. Brooks now sits in the Terminal Island federal penitentiary in California with a scheduled release date of July 2013. A fifth man, Terrence Brown, known as T-Brown, was named early on in a Compton Police affidavit as having been in the Cadillac with Tupac’s assailant. None has yet to be officially linked to Tupac’s murder. The book’s third edition breaks down that night in a minute-by-minute time line, supplying the information needed for readers to decide how the murder went down.

To some, Shakur was not just another ghetto kid who had made it big in the rap industry. He was much more than that. He continues to be an inspiration, 13 years after his death, not only because of his music, but also for his ability to reach youth of all races. Whatever Shakur was, it’s indisputable that in both life and death, he took the rap industry by storm.

And now, with a team in place taking a fresh look at the case, the killers may very well be brought to justice and the questions surrounding Tupac’s murder, including untold conspiracy theories, may finally be answered.

For Las Vegas record producer David Wallace, who met Tupac at a party hosted by Death Row, Tupac's record distributor, about a year before the killing, Tupac’s music will live on, regardless of whether his murder is ever solved. “He was an artist,” Wallace said. “You can’t just sing tosomebody. You have to sing through them. Man, when Pac sang, he was real about it.”


The latest edition of The Killing of Tupac Shakur  is expected before Christmas. Stay turned for updates.

Who Killed Tupac Shakur?

From PR-USA.NET Photo, above, is last one taken of Tupac alive (from cover of The Killing of Tupac Shakur. Who Killed Tupac? Interview by Anton Batey with Cathy Scott Who killed Tupac? Was it really Suge Knight, Crips or police? Why wasn’t the case ever officially solved? This insightful interview with Cathy Scott conducted by Anton Batey attempts to answer these questions. Award winning journalist Cathy Scott, author of several books and featured in the 2pac DVDs Before I Wake and Tupac Assassination, and will be featured in Part II of Tupac Assassination, is interviewed regarding the murder of rap icon Tupac Shakur. Interviewer Anton Batey asks Cathy a wide range of questions, talk at length about Orlando Anderson, the alleged killer of Tupac, the “Suge Killed Tupac” theory, the police investigation, Tupac’s record deal and much more. If you have any interest in justice, you’ll want to hear this! Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Interview is about 45 minutes in lengh. Contact Anton Batey at Anton_Batey@yahoo.com