“Let me tell you the reality, My great-grandmother was a slave. My grandmother was a sharecropper. My mother was a domestic, and I was whatever the fuck I was. That child changed things for all of us.” – Afeni Shakur Vanity Fair ’13
On this day in 1996, Tupac Amaru Shakur had just finished watching Mike Tyson beat his opponent in two minutes at the MGM. A few hours later at 25, a brilliant mind and soul was gunned down on the Las Vegas strip in a car driven by Death Row CEO Suge Knight.
The question of who shot Tupac was widely debated with so many explosive details about that time period coming to light from various sources. Some from former Death Row bodyguards, police, journalist and writers. For over two decades, his murder remained “unsolved” in the court of law, just like The Notorious B.I.G. Both of their murders are eerily similar and seem connected to most.
What cannot be disputed, is that when Tupac left the MGM that evening, he was involved in an altercation that many believe cost him his life. Him and his entourage were caught on camera in the MGM lobby beating up Orlando Anderson, a crip gang-member. Someone told Tupac Anderson tried to steal a chain from someone months earlier.
Death Row was affiliated with the Bloods in Los Angeles which included undercover police officers–and the Bloods rivalry with the Crips–was known to be deadly. Recently, it was concluded by the LAPD that Tupac was killed because of the fight with Anderson. Immunity was given to Anderson’s uncle Keefe D, for a taped confession.
People like John Potash however, say otherwise. Potash spent decades researching the Black Panther Party and Cointelpro; the secret surveillance program spearheaded by the FBI who invested millions of dollars to spy on and suppress Black leaders and movements. This program was supposedly ended in the 70’s but it appears to have continued under the guise of other names.
