The Killing of Tupac Shakur (26 page)

Kenner told the
Los Angeles Times
that the disputed charges “were put on these cards without the authorization of Mr. Knight or myself for expenditures that had nothing to do with us.”

Some of the charges, however, did include fight tickets for the Tyson-Seldon match on September 7, 1996. The American Express bills were sent directly to Kenner’s Encino, California, law offices, the
New Times
reported.

Thirteen pages in the suit itemized the expenses charged from June to September 1996.

Kenner’s wife had charged $3,763.69 to Dial-a-Mattress, Bed Bath & Beyond, Nobody Beats the Wiz, and the NYU Book Center in New York, and Ralph Lauren and Barey’s in Beverly Hills. Also included was airfare to New York City. At face value, the charges appear to be personal and household items to outfit Erica Kenner and her home at the expense of Death Row Records.

Las Vegas-related expenses included chartered jets—at a cost of $42,279.86—from Jetwest International on September
4 and September 17, plus jet refuel charges of $23,042.88 from Spirit Aviation. Kenner also reportedly charged airfare of $122,303.44 to Bel Aire Travel. On September 19 there was another Bel Aire Travel charge of $108,294.95. Limousine services were charged to CLS Transportation on September 12 and September 13, the day Tupac died, for $160,000.

The records also show that Suge booked 27 separate hotel rooms at Luxor Hotel for $50 per night (or $1,584.21) and spent $666.45 at the Tinder Box in Las Vegas for cigars. A charge of September 12 was made to CLS Transportation for $50,000. A transaction on September 21 was made at the Beverly Hills Hotel for $2,738.82. Besides the actual expenses, American Express tacked on an additional $25,787 late fee.

A Luxor Hotel executive, who asked not to be identified, said that only two hotel rooms, both suites, were booked by Suge Knight that week, and that Knight had been billed just for those two rooms.

• • •

In perhaps the strangest turn of events, Suge Knight was accused by a former accountant for Death Row Records of assaulting him, in what the
Wall Street Journal
termed a “horrifying encounter.” The behavior of accountant Steven Cantrock, however, seemed even more bizarre.

On the morning of Saturday, October 12, 1996, Cantrock, Death Row’s accountant and a principal in the Los Angeles office of Gelfand, Rennert & Feldman, a division of Coopers & Lybrand, went to his boss. He told him that he had attended a meeting with Suge Knight the night before and claimed that Suge had “assaulted him, forced him to his knees, and made him sign a trumped-up IOU,” the
Wall Street Journal
reported.

In the IOU, Cantrock confessed that he had stolen $4.5 million from Knight, his client. “The coerced statement, he assured his shocked Coopers associates, was false and absurd,” the newspaper’s Alix M. Freedman and Laurie P. Cohen wrote.

Troubling questions soon emerged, and Cantrock eventually left the firm with his story in doubt. Coopers declined to comment, other than to say that it had “several ties with both accountant and client.”

Coopers’ association with Death Row and Suge Knight began in November 1993 when Cantrock landed the account with the record label, which had been looking for someone to manage the financial end of the business. Cantrock was given sole authority to write checks for the rap label.

“Mr. Knight and his roving entourage were huge spenders, even by Hollywood standards,” the newspaper reported. “Rather than rein them in, Mr. Cantrock went with the flow. ... When the Death Row clan was on the road, Mr. Cantrock saw to it that stretch limousines were lined up outside their hotels 24 hours a day, as Mr. Knight desired. The accountant signed off on their impulse purchases of Rolex watches, Lexus cars, yachts, and jewelry.”

One thing Cantrock wasn’t able to accomplish, however, was organizing Death Row’s financial affairs; the rap label was perpetually short of cash.

Suge told the
Wall Street Journal
, through his attorney, that he “was in the dark” about money problems and believed “everything was fine.”

Suge began to realize there was a problem when Cantrock started to lose clients at Coopers & Lybrand. Suge started paying more attention, and he quickly suspected that Death Row funds were missing. He confronted Cantrock for the first time on June 4, 1996, the newspaper reported, asking about the missing money, including a refund of $25,000 for the down payment on a Las Vegas house Suge had decided not to purchase. Cantrock reportedly admitted taking the money. Suge told him, “Just stop stealing, pay me back, and get on the ball with putting the business in order.”

But by the end of June 1996, Death Row’s financial situation was already a shambles. Suge said he wasn’t getting an accounting of the books from Cantrock and was still being kept in the dark. So Suge called a meeting, attended
by several people, including Suge’s attorney David Kenner, at a San Fernando Valley home. An IOU was written and signed by Cantrock. Those present in the room during the confrontation disputed Cantrock’s claim that he signed the IOU under duress.

On February 7, 1997, Coopers issued a statement that it had “asked for and received [Cantrock’s] resignation” for violating the firm’s policies.

Death Row did not try to collect the $4.5 million it said it was owed, although Kenner said at the time that he was contemplating a lawsuit against Coopers & Lybrand and Cantrock.

Since November 30, 1994, the day Tupac Shakur was shot the first time in the lobby of Quad Studios in Manhattan, six people directly involved in the rap-music business have been murdered. Besides Tupac, there were the murders of Randy Walker, Yafeu Fula, Jake Robles, Biggie Smalls, and Alton “Kungry” McDonald. In addition, at least another dozen people known to be affiliated with the Bloods and Crips gangs have been wounded or killed in drive-by shootings. In most of the cases, homicide and gang detectives involved in the investigations (other than Compton police, who called the rash of violence a “bloodbath”) say the assaults and murders are not connected.

People in the music industry thought otherwise. For years many people in the rap-music industry were worried, wondering who was next.

Snoop Dogg, at the time a rapper for Death Row, postponed a music tour a week after Biggie Smalls was killed. Snoop delayed the Lollapalooza tour for a month, he said, out of respect for Biggie, but others said it was out of fear for his life. Indeed, he had rented an armored bullet-proof vehicle (said to be equipped with holes for weapons) instead of riding the tour bus with the crew.

“Tupac has been killed, and six months later [Biggie
was] killed, and he doesn’t want to be next,” Jeff Bowen, booking and marketing director at Winston-Salem’s (North Carolina) Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum, told The Associated Press. Bowen said Snoop was expected to begin his tour—the Doggfather East-West Fresh Fest 1997 World Tour—sometime in April 1997. His revamped tour was to include a film tribute to Biggie and Tupac. Instead of opening in Winston-Salem, it opened May 1 in San Diego, closer to Snoop’s L.A. base, and included the film tribute to his slain fellow rappers.

“Snoop is the only one left,” J. Howell, owner of C&J Concert Promotions, told a reporter. “He will take it to the forefront and let people—let kids—know that it’s not all about [violence]. He’s coming out with a band and talking about peace and unity, whether you’re white, black, green, or yellow.”

Snoop Dogg wasn’t the only one who was scared off. Warren G’s record-company execs postponed a promotional tour for his new album,
Take a Look Over Your Shoulder
, because they feared for his safety.

Havoc, a rapper with the band Mobb Deep, told reporter David Bauder that the violence can’t be ignored.

“We’re talking targets because we’re rappers, we’re entertainers. We’ve got to be careful,” he said.

Ice T agreed, telling Bauder, “This is the first time I ever felt unsafe.”

Luke, a rapper formerly with the band 2 Live Crew, concurred that many rappers were nervous. “It’s unsafe for Snoop to come to a concert in New York, for Nas to go to a concert in L.A., because there ain’t nobody finding these people who are killing everybody.”

On June 28, 1997, Snoop Dogg attended the Evander Holyfield-Mike Tyson heavyweight rematch bout at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Many witnesses said that shots rang out inside the casino (LVMPD denied it). An ensuing stampede injured several dozen people, but Snoop escaped unharmed.
He was seen being guarded by Nation of Islam security officers (who are easily identified by their bowties).

• • •

On September 24, 1995, 10 months after Tupac was shot the first time in New York, Jake Robles, a close friend of Suge’s and an employee of Death Row, was shot at an Atlanta nightclub. Robles died a week later. Suge blamed Sean Combs and Bad Boy Entertainment’s associates for Jake’s death.

Then, on November 30, 1995, a year to the day after the first attempt on Tupac’s life, rapper Stretch Walker, a key witness to the New York shooting, was murdered. Walker, a close friend of Tupac’s, was shot by three assailants during a high-speed chase in Queens. Walker had rapped with Tupac on his
Thug Life
album and Tupac wrote lyrics about him, saying, “Big Stretch represent the real nigga.” As with the majority of the other “unrelated” murders involving gangsta rappers, Walker’s murder remains unsolved.

After the April 1996 “Soul Train” Music Awards, someone pulled a gun during a heated exchange in the parking lot between associates with Bad Boy Entertainment and Death Row Records.

On July 3, 1996, Biggie Smalls, Lil’ Cease (of Junior M.A.F.I.A.), Lil’ Kim, and DJ Enuff narrowly escaped a possible hit attempt, the
Village Voice
reported. Biggie had gone to Atlanta to represent Combs and Bad Boy at a concert. But during his set, Tupac’s crew began taunting Biggie and shouting, “Tupac! Tupac! Tupac!”

Afterward, Biggie and his crew were followed to their hotel by people in a van they believed were trying to kill them. With the groups’ Glock 9-millimeters locked and cocked, one of Biggie’s bodyguards told the
Voice
, the driver of Biggie’s car made a series of radical maneuvers leading to the interstate. The people following them apparently realized “they’d been made,” the guard said, then pulled in front of Biggie’s car. Biggie’s crew thought they might have to shoot their way out.

“Face it,” the bodyguard told the
Voice
, “there wasn’t no questions gonna be asked. You knew it was on and what you had to do right then.”

The van and a truck continued shadowing them as they drove on the interstate and around the suburbs of Atlanta.

Biggie, the bodyguard said, wanted to find out who they were. “Pull over and see what they want,” he told the driver. He did. With that, the truck and van sped off. Biggie and his entourage returned to their hotel without learning the identities of the occupants of the van.

“The next day we found out that Tupac did come into town that night and he stayed in the hotel across the street from where Biggie was staying, and he left that morning,” the bodyguard told the
Voice
.

Then Tupac and Biggie were killed in drive-by shootings and Yafeu Fula was executed gangland-style. Fula’s killer was arrested and convicted, but the gunmen who murdered Tupac, Biggie, Robles, Walker, and McDonald have gotten away with murder.

One thing police have not disputed is that all the shootings have been executed in gang-style drive-bys.

As for police claims that the murders were all unrelated, it’s a difficult sell. It was common knowledge that Randy Walker was a witness in the November 30, 1994, shooting of Tupac in Manhattan. Tupac and others said they believed Walker was murdered because of that, and that his death was not a random act of violence.

Many in the music industry feel the same way about Yafeu Fula’s death. He was a witness to Tupac’s fatal shooting, so he, too, had to be executed to eliminate the possibility that he’d drop a dime and talk.

Then, when Biggie Smalls was murdered in a scenario similar to Tupac’s slaying, talk that it was retaliation for Shakur’s death was widespread.

Still, police from coast to coast have been hesitant to say any of the killings are related. Even now, after all these years, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether the murder connections,
if any, are real or perceived. Could they be, as police have suggested, just gang-bangers doing their thing, in random shootings, coincidentally hitting witnesses to other murders?

If the murders of Jake Robles, Randy Walker, Tupac Shakur, Yafeu Fula, and Biggie Smalls are gang-related, the fatal results of a war between the Bloods and Crips, people in the gangsta-rap business say they won’t be the last.

In the past, gang members carried Saturday Night Specials. Today’s black gangs are armed with sophisticated paramilitary weapons such as semiautomatic rifles, Uzis, Glocks, Mac-10-type submachine guns, and 9-millimeter and 45-caliber pistols.

• • •

There are several stories about the origins of the Crips, but the most commonly accepted version is that the gang was started in the neighborhoods of West Los Angeles. The smaller neighborhood gangs consolidated and joined forces, forming the larger, and more powerful, Crips gang. An influential gang member named Raymond Washington started the Crips, which gradually built a reputation for being the strongest force among the black gangs of West L. A. Soon, other gangs started renaming themselves, incorporating the word Crips into their new names, gangs such as the Main Street Crips, Kitchen Crips, 5 Duece Crips, and Rollin 20 Crips appeared on the streets.

The development of the Bloods has been similar to that of the Crips. Black men in their late teens and early twenties living in rival neighborhoods in Compton formed the Bloods. In the early ’70s Sylvester Scott and Vincent Owens formed the Compton Pirus, named for West Piru Street in the city of Compton. The Compton Pirus rose to power quickly and became extremely powerful. As the recognition given to the Compton Pirus spread throughout L.A. County, other Piru gangs, which later changed their name to Bloods, were formed. Today, the Bloods are the most formidable rivals of the Crips.