The Killing of Tupac Shakur (7 page)

“Investigators have no reason, at this time, to believe that the altercation has any connection to the [Tupac] shooting.

“The videotape will not be released since it appears to have no evidentiary value to the shooting incident.”

• • •

No “evidentiary value” just hours before a homicide shooting? In retrospect, the decision was premature and possibly, indeed, evidentiary. The tape, in fact, was later released, made public, and used against Suge Knight to put him in prison for violation of parole.

Why didn’t the police and security officers detain Tupac
Shakur and members of his entourage for questioning after the attack on Orlando Anderson? Though the official statement denies it, surely those first on the scene knew that Tupac was involved. Was it Suge and Tupac’s celebrity status that allowed them to walk away from an obvious crime? Was it Suge’s business connection to Metro? After all, off-duty Metro officers at that very moment were being paid time-and-a-half wages by Death Row to patrol Suge’s house and club. Later, just 15 minutes before the shooting, Suge would again be treated preferentially when he was stopped, but not cited, for failure to display a license plate on his car and for playing his music too loudly. Did the polite police behavior stem from the fear of offending a celebrity? Police say no.

Contrary to the claim in the police news bulletin that the videotape would not be released, it was subsequently relinquished by LVMPD. While continuing to adamantly deny the beating was related to Tupac’s homicide, detectives released the tape to Fox’s “America’s Most Wanted” TV show. Later, it was subpoenaed by the Los Angeles Superior Court for Suge Knight’s parole-violation proceedings, where it became public record.

Another surveillance tape shows an agitated Tupac and his friends storming through the casino at the MGM Grand. Suge can be seen running behind Tupac, trying to catch up, with members of their entourage following behind. Tupac is seen slamming his hand against an MGM glass entrance door as he angrily leaves the casino at the valet area.

After the existence of the surveillance tapes became widely known to the media, Sergeant Manning dismissed the scuffle, saying, “It appears to be just an individual who was walking through the MGM and got into an argument with Tupac. The man probably didn’t know who he was dealing with. He probably didn’t know it was Tupac Shakur.” Later, of course, we found out differently.

The victim “wasn’t dressed like everyone else,” an investigator said. “The subject was wearing a ball club shirt, like a team jersey, and wasn’t dressed up like Shakur and
his group.” In other words, he didn’t look like he fit in with Tupac and his flashy West Coast crew, who were wearing expensive clothes and jewelry.

At some point, and privately, the investigators changed their thinking. The videotape of the scuffle became evidence. What had been a minor fight-night encounter turned into an event of enormous significance in the grand scheme of the investigation.

“Any of those incidents leading up to Tupac’s death obviously are of interest from an investigative standpoint,” Lieutenant Peterson later said. “[But] we don’t have a case. We’ve got no evidence linking [Orlando Anderson] to this [murder].”

The surveillance videotape was forwarded to the evidence vault for storage several months after the murder.

After the shooting, homicide detectives scrambled to learn the identify of the victim in the MGM Grand altercation by talking to the officers who responded that night. Only the man’s first name, “Orlando,” could be recalled. That was enough, according to police. How the first name of a young black man could have been enough information for Metro detectives to contact the Compton Police Department wasn’t revealed and is still unclear. Perhaps they had more than just his first name. Compton police gang officers were able to give Las Vegas police the name of “Orlando Anderson” and shared information that Anderson was allegedly tied to the Los Angeles Southside Crips street gang. Police in Compton quickly dispatched a photo of Orlando, a mug shot from their files. The photo was shown to the officers and security guards working at the MGM Grand on September 7th to see if they could identify him. They could. They positively identified Orlando Anderson as the victim of the beating.

Just as the MGM Grand hotel videotape was obtained by LVMPD, investigators could have easily confiscated videotape from Excalibur, where Compton police say Orlando Anderson stayed that weekend. Detectives could have viewed surveillance videotape from the Excalibur parking garage to see whether Orlando was captured getting in or out of a white
Cadillac. Or they could have looked to see who Orlando—in town, police say, with fellow gang members from Compton—was hanging out with and what cars they were getting around in. Las Vegas police didn’t do any of that.

The vibes Compton police were getting from LVMPD homicide detectives was that they, for whatever reason, weren’t interested in solving Tupac’s murder. A raid that took place just four days after the shooting confirmed, police say, Compton officers’ suspicions that Orlando was involved in some way.

It happened like this. On Wednesday, September 11, Los Angeles-area police raided a Compton house, responding to reports that the men inside had weapons. When officers arrived, they found Orlando Anderson and four other alleged Crips members standing in the front yard of the house. Anderson reportedly ran inside, followed closely by police. Upon questioning, he claimed he didn’t live at that address, that he lived next door, even though police said a high school diploma bearing his name hung on a bedroom wall. Inside, investigators discovered an AK-47 assault rifle, a 38-caliber revolver, two shotguns, a 9-millimeter M-11 assault pistol, and ammunition. Police confiscated the weapons. But because Orlando insisted he didn’t live in the house and police had no real evidence to prove otherwise, they let him go.

Even so, in the days following, police began focusing on Orlando Anderson as a possible suspect in Tupac’s murder, as well as in an unrelated L.A.-area killing. Both Las Vegas and Compton police said they’d received several tips accusing Orlando of being connected to the Las Vegas crime. One tip, given to Compton police on September 13, held that a reputed member of the Bloods identified the man who shot Tupac as Orlando Anderson.

An affidavit signed by Compton Police Detective Tim Brennan, dated September 25, 1996, and unsealed in February 1997 in Los Angeles Superior Court, read: “Informants have told police that Southside Crips were responsible for the Las Vegas shooting [of Shakur]. There is also an ongoing feud
between Tupac Shakur and the Bloods-related Death Row Records with rapper Biggie Smalls and the East Coast’s Bad Boy Entertainment, which employed Southside Crips gang members as security.”

Bad Boy Entertainment has adamantly denied it hired Crips members.

“We have no knowledge of security being provided by Crip or other gang members,” Bad Boy spokeswoman Maureen Connelly said in a released statement. “Bad Boy Entertainment employs full-time security personnel and they [are] supplemented by off-duty members of the Los Angeles police force.”

The accusations by Compton police were damning evidence against Orlando. Even so, he remained free. And Orlando, through his attorney, denied any involvement. Edi M.O. Faal, Rodney King’s one-time attorney, represented Orlando. Although he admitted Orlando was the man assaulted at the MGM Grand by Tupac and his entourage, Faal denied that his client had any involvement in Tupac’s murder.

Anderson also strongly denied any connection to Tupac’s death. But Compton police remained convinced and unwavering that Shakur’s murder was the result of a Bloods-Crips feud. What was frustrating, Compton police sources say, is having evidence against Orlando and watching LVMPD detectives ignore it.

• • •

In mid September 1996, Los Angeles police organized a massive predawn sweep of Bloods and Crips neighborhoods—in Lakewood, Long Beach, Compton, and L.A. It was a 45-location gang sweep. The action would go down two weeks later, in October. The raid was organized after three people were killed in 12 shootings in the Compton area the week following the Tupac shooting, Compton Police Captain Steven Roller told reporters. He described the violence as possible retaliation for Tupac’s murder.

As part of the operation, Los Angeles and Compton police mapped out an early-morning raid, which included plans to serve a search warrant at Orlando Anderson’s house. Las Vegas homicide detectives Brent Becker and Mike Franks were notified and invited to be there so they could question Orlando. They arrived in L.A. the day before the raid.

On October 2, approximately 300 L.A.-area police and federal agents, most clad in riot gear—black masks, helmets, combat boots, and bullet-resistant vests—raided 37 homes, including Anderson’s. LVMPD Detective Becker talked with Orlando Anderson outside the house he shared with relatives, while Los Angeles-area police searched inside the house.

Becker, sitting in his car while Anderson stood nearby, said he talked casually with the young Compton resident about the MGM surveillance tape of the scuffle between Tupac, Suge, and other Death Row Records’ associates. Becker told me he questioned Orlando only about the scuffle at the MGM the night Tupac was shot, and said he didn’t touch on the homicide that followed.

Later, in a CNN interview, Orlando accused Las Vegas police, specifically Detective Becker, of telling him he was a suspect in Tupac’s murder. “I want to let everybody know—you know what I’m sayin’?—I didn’t do it,” he told CNN. “I been thinkin’ that maybe I’m a scapegoat or somethin’.”

Appearing on CNN with Orlando, his lawyer Edi Faal said, “This young man is almost acting like a prisoner now. He is very careful where he goes. He is very careful when he goes out.”

Becker and his supervisors maintained that Anderson was merely asked about the fight that was captured on the casino surveillance tapes, and that Orlando was reading more into the encounter with Becker than was there. Becker later said it must have been his simply talking with a Las Vegas detective that had made Orlando nervous.

LVMPD homicide Lieutenant Wayne Petersen defended Becker and strongly denied Anderson’s allegation. “When Brent went to Los Angeles to talk to Anderson, he asked
Anderson questions only about the fight at the MGM,” Petersen insisted. “He never asked him about the homicide. If he wanted to ask him questions about the homicide, he would have had to read him his Miranda rights.” Becker told Petersen that “Anderson asked [him] if he was going to take him back to Vegas, and Becker’s response was, ‘Why should I?’”

The Los Angeles police raid of gang houses netted 23 arrests, including Anderson, on various weapons and drug-possession charges. Also confiscated from one of those arrested was a Death Row pendant (it has yet to be revealed by police which suspect the pendant was taken from). Orlando Anderson was held for questioning in connection with a 1994 murder, as well as for questioning by Las Vegas Metro police about the scuffle at MGM. But Compton police said they didn’t have enough evidence on the 1994 gang-related murder to hold Anderson. He was released the next day without being charged.

LVMPD detectives, too, had decided not to charge Orlando Anderson with a murder, this one of Tupac Shakur.

• • •

The scuffle at the MGM Grand had serious legal ramifications and repercussions for Suge Knight. He ended up being charged with a serious infraction of probation for an earlier conviction.

On October 18, 1996, a warrant for Suge’s arrest was issued for failing to submit to periodic drug tests, one of the conditions of his probation.

On Tuesday, October 22, 1996, 45 days after the Tyson-Seldon and Shakur-Anderson fights, Suge surrendered to Los Angeles police for violating probation, to which he was sentenced in 1995 after pleading no contest to assaulting two rappers at a Hollywood recording studio. (In 1992, brothers George and Stanley Lynwood, two aspiring rappers, used a telephone at Suge’s studio without first asking permission. Suge walked in and caught them. He beat one of them with
a gun and threatened to kill them both. He also forced the brothers to remove their pants. The Lynwoods filed a police complaint against Knight. Suge was convicted on assault charges and sentenced to probation.) Suge was jailed without bail. In early November, he was in court to answer charges that his involvement in the MGM Grand altercation was a violation of his probation.

• • •

The small neighborhood of Compton, a largely African-American suburb in South Central Los Angeles, is where Suge Knight grew up (the youngest of three, with two older sisters) and where, cops say, he became affiliated with the Bloods street gang. Suge sports a tattoo that reads “M.O.B.” which some say stands for “Member of the Bloods”; others say it’s for “Money Over Bitches” (one of Knight’s known mottos); still others say it stands, simply, for “Mob,” as in the Mafia. The letters “M.O.B.” also coincide with numbers 662 on a telephone number pad. The significance is in the name Club 662, the nightspot Tupac and Suge were heading to the night of the deadly shooting.

After Orlando Anderson’s October arrest in the L.A. gang sweep, several people who were arrested with him told Compton police that Suge had been the intended target.

In an affidavit filed on November 5, 1996, with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge J. Stephen Czuleger, probation officer Barry Nodorf recommended that Knight’s probation remain revoked and that the defendant remain locked up pending a formal violation hearing.

Judge Czuleger viewed the MGM Grand security videotape in his courtroom. The tape shows a man identified as Suge Knight pushing down another man and kicking him.

“There are compelling reasons to believe that another probation violation has occurred,” probation officer Nodorf said in his seven-page report.

“This fact, coupled with the defendant’s potential threat
to the community and the possibility of his being a flight risk, leaves the probation officer with no alternative but to make the recommendation” that the defendant remain in jail, where he would spend four months awaiting the hearing’s outcome, he said.