The Killing of Tupac Shakur by Cathy Scott

handgun casings around the gas pumps. In the hours following the shooting, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department sent a gang-enforcement team to search for suspects and stem further violence. Authorities said a man who had been with McDonald ran from the scene. The car McDonald was driving at the time of the shooting was registered to a former Compton police officer, Reggie Wright Jr., who reportedly served as head of security at Wrightway for Suge Knight. McDonald was in the entourage the night Tupac was gunned down in Las Vegas. He was also involved in the video-taped brawl at the MGM Grand hours before Tupac was killed and could be seen in the footage dressed in white.

    All the while, Las Vegas police continued to investigate Tupac Shakur’s murder. But critics, including Tupac’s mother, her attorney, and witnesses, complained about the LVMPD’s handling of the case from the first moments following the shooting.

 

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THE SCUFFLE
    The Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon match was supposed to begin at eight o’clock sharp that Saturday night, September 7th, but it started about 15 minutes late. Then, Tyson knocked out Seldon in the first round in less than two minutes.
    Tupac Shakur, Suge Knight, and two others who attended the fight met up with the rest of their entourage outside the MGM Grand Garden’s doors, where the match was held. The group walked out of the arena and into the casino. Tupac was spotted leaving the Grand Garden by freelance video cameraman Cornell Wade, who worked for a Las Vegas-based video services company that was filming celebrities for TV shows. That night Wade was contracted by Black Entertainment Television (BET). The BET reporter Wade was working with had trouble getting out of the crowded arena. And as the cameraman stood outside the exit waiting for her, he recognized Tupac as he walked through the turnstiles and out of the arena.
    Wade was in the midst of interviewing Louis Gossett Jr. when he spotted Tupac. Unlike Gossett, Tupac wasn’t one of the celebrities Wade was assigned to film. But he thought to himself, What the heck. I’ll [film] him anyway . He wrapped up his interview with Gossett and walked a few steps toward Tupac. He said, “I’m with Black Entertainment Television. Can I ask you about the fight?”

    “Sure. No problem, man. Go ahead,” Tupac replied as his record producer, Suge Knight, stood quietly in the background, behind him.
    Wade put a mike in front of Tupac and switched on the camera. “What’d you think of tonight’s match?” Wade asked.
    Tupac looked straight into the camera lens and said, “Did y’all see that? Fifty punches. I counted. Fifty punches. I knew he was gonna take him out. We bad like that—come outta prison and now we runnin’ shit.”
    It was the last interview of Tupac’s life.
    Later, when the reporter learned that Tupac had been at the Tyson fight and had been shot afterward, she commented to Wade, “I wish we would have gotten video of him.”
    “I did,” Wade told her. “I got it.” He handed the tape over to BET, even though he undoubtedly could have sold it to the TV tabloids for an exorbitant price. The short interview aired for several days on an untold number of national TV news programs.
    At 8:45 p.m., as Tupac, Suge, and their friends were winding their way through the casino on their way to the street, they ran into Orlando Tive Anderson, from Compton, California. A fist fight broke out.
    Exactly what precipitated the fight is still not completely known. But there were rumors that Anderson, also known as “Little Lando” and “Land,” had tried to grab a large gold medallion with the Death Row Records insignia from the neck of one of Tupac’s friend. As a result of whatever prompted the beef, Tupac and the group jumped Anderson. There were also reports that Tupac and Orlando had exchanged heated words earlier in the evening, inside the Grand Garden as they waited for the bout to begin, which caused the beef