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Gang War:
Sons of CHAOS vs. Thugs. A Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G.
Assassination Digest
YOU KNOW THAT COP
WHO PULLS YOU OVER, WHO DIDN'T REALLY HAVE TO GIVE YOU
A TICKET BUT HE GAVE YOU ONE ANYWAY? WE'RE GONNA MULTIPLY HIM 100 TIMES,
AND NOW YOU HAVE THE CHIEF OF POLICE. MULTIPLY HIM ABOUT 100 TIMES, AND
YOU'VE GOT AN FBI AGENT. MULTIPLY HIM APPROXIMATELY 1,000 TIMES AND YOU'VE GOT A CIA AGENT. MULTIPLY THIS AGENT ANOTHER 10,000, AND
YOU'VE GOT THE HEAD OF THE CIA.
-- ICE T, THE ICE OPINION: WHO GIVES A FUCK?,
NEW YORK: ST. MARTIN'S, 1994.
A fog machine in
the police establishment conceals the killers of rap artist Tupac Shakur,
gunned down at a
stop light in Las Vegas on
September 7, 1996. The assailants are dim shrouds in a toxic cloud
of disinformation. Police officials in Las Vegas and Compton have
hinted alternately that the rapper was shot by a death squad under
the direction of Marion "Suge" Knight, founder of Death Row
Records -- implausible because the thug impresario was himself
wounded in the attack -- or the late Orlando Anderson, a 22-year old
Pac fan widely reputed to be a "gang-banger" -- an honor student, in
fact, not a gangsta. Although Anderson has been publicly identified
by evidence leaked to the corporate media, all who knew Anderson
maintain he was "not at all violent." [1] It will be evident that a police
stonewall, subsequent killings, a strategy of disinformation, the
ignoring of witnesses, and the presence of undercover agents from
Los Angeles and New York at the subsequent murder of rapper
Notorious BIG suggest conversely that both rappers were murdered by hit squads under the sanction of federal officials.
Cathy Scott, a reporter for the Las Vegas Sun, penetrated the secretive handling of the Tupac case by authorities, and reported:
No one followed the mortuary van carrying Tupac Shakur's body from
the hospital to the morgue. The van drove three blocks without being
noticed. An autopsy was done the evening of [Friday] Sept 13, 1996,
almost immediately following his death, according to authorities.
While the autopsy report is not deemed by Nevada state law to be
public information, the coroner's report is available to the public.
However, after I bought a copy for $5, an office employee later said it
had been given to me in error, and that they would not be releasing it
to anyone because of the ongoing homicide investigation. To my
knowledge, I am the only reporter to have a copy of that report.
Coroners found that Tupac had no illegal drugs in his blood when
shot, but he had been heavily sedated at University Medical Center.
He had been shot in his right hand, hip and chest just under the right
arm. A trauma center surgeon removed a bullet from his pelvic area.
"Tupac's injuries included a gunshot wound to his right chest with a
'massive hemothorax' and a wound to the thigh with 'the bullet palpable within the abdomen."' The diagnosis was a gunshot wound to
the chest and abdomen, and post-operative bleeding. [2]
The murder "investigation" has been side-tracked at every turn by
detectives in Compton and Las Vegas, who have consistently managed
to avoid gathering leads. Key witnesses to Tupac's murder died in a
timely fashion. Others were shunned by homicide detectives.
Yafeu Fula, the eyewitness, was unable to provide a description of
the trigger-man. He was murdered himself two months after Shakur
was pronounced dead. On November 14, 1996, the wires reported,
"Witness to Tupac's Murder Killed":
One of Tupac Shakur's backup rappers who witnessed the fatal
shooting of the hip-hop star was gunned down in a New Jersey
housing project this weekend. So far, police are saying that the slaying
of 19-year old Yafeu Fula has no connection with Tupac's death.
But Fula's death will further stymie the slow-moving murder investigation.
"It's another dead end for us," said Las Vegas police Sgt. Kevin
Manning, the lead investigator.
Fula, a member of Shakur's backing group Outlaw Immortalz, was
riding with bodyguards in the car behind Shakur when the rapper was
shot by unknown assailants returning from the Tyson-Bruce fight
September 7 in Las Vegas ...
Strangely enough, Fula was also murdered the night of a Mike Tyson
fight. Evander Holyfield defeated Mike Tyson just hours before Fula
was killed.
Meanwhile, Shakur's driving companion and Death Row Records
head Marion "Suge" Knight is sitting in a Los Angeles courtroom
today accused of drug-related probation violations. Later this
month, federal prosecutors will contend he used marijuana in violation of a 1994 firearms trafficking conviction in Las Vegas.
Think the Tupac killing will ever
be solved? [3]
Other witnesses, dismissed by police as "uncooperative," complained
to reporters that no attempt had been made to solicit their testimony.
Two of Tupac Shakur's entourage informed authorities that they saw
who murdered him but were never asked to identify suspects. These
witnesses -- Malcolm Greenridge, one of Shakur's back-up performers,
and Frank Alexander, a bodyguard -- were also driving behind the
rapper when the assailants opened fire. But Greenridge and Alexander
were never contacted by homicide investigators about the killing.
Metro Police Sergeant Kevin Manning countered with an attempt to
discredit them They "gave us taped statements on the night of the
shooting that are totally inconsistent" with their public statements, he
said Manning also assured reporters that investigators had finally contacted one witness and intended to contact the other
-- several months
after witnesses had complained to the press of police inaction.
Greenridge and Alexander were clear about the killing. "I saw four
black males in a white Cadillac as it rolled by our car just before
Tupac got shot," he recalls. "I couldn't see which of those four people
pulled the trigger, but I saw the gun come from the back seat out
through the driver's front window, and I saw the driver. I did see all
four faces for a few split seconds before the shooting, though, and I
told the police that. I can't promise you I could identify them, but
nobody has ever even asked me to try."
Tupac Shakur
Frank Alexander
asked "Could I identify the killer of my
friend Tupac Shakur
if the police showed
me photos or a
lineup of suspects?
Possibly so. The
thing is that the Las
Vegas Metro Police
never even tried to
show me a photo of
the shooter. Nor did
they call me at any
time for a line-up or
to ask me anything
concerning the
shooting and death
of Tupac." Both witnesses stated that
they did not pursue
the issue with Las Vegas police because they distrusted them. Just after
the shooting, "the police shoved guns in our faces and threatened us," Greenridge said. "They made us lay face down in the middle
of the street. Even after they realized we were telling the truth, they
never apologized." Greenridge told reporters, "If you ask me, I don't
think they really care who killed Tupac. [He] was just another black
man that had a strong opinion -- and now he's out of the way."
Six months after the Las Vegas assault, the "investigation" was still
ostensibly bogged down in police apathy. The Sun's Cathy Scott reported
in March:
When a producer from Unsolved Mysteries called last year and asked
me to go on camera, my first response was, "Don't you have anyone
else you can interview?" For six months, Metro homicide detectives
have investigated Shakur's murder. They didn't want to be interviewed for the Unsolved piece, claiming the publicity "won't help them solve
the crime."
Tupac and Biggie each performed for record labels that were the
targets of federal investigations. The nights they were killed, each was
with their record label producers (Tupac was with Marion "Suge"
Knight, owner of Death Row Records on the West Coast, and Biggie
was with Puffy Combs, owner of Bad Boy Entertainment on the East
Coast). Are the killings connected? That's one of three questions narrator Robert Stack poses on
Unsolved Mysteries.
"Today, disturbing questions haunt the investigation," Stack says.
"Why were Tupac's trusted bodyguards unarmed? Why did the killer
seem to target only Shakur? In the midst of the jam-packed Las Vegas
Strip, how did the gunman know where Tupac would be?"
In the information vacuum of the "dead-end" investigation,
rumors spread like a continental brush fire. Sergeant Manning claimed that more than half of the tips following the March 14
Unsolved Mysteries segment on Shakur were theories that the rapper
is still alive. "I was at the autopsy," Manning reported. "His mother
was at the hospital when he died. The doctors, the nurses were
there, the people from the mortuary and the coroner's office were
involved. For him not to be dead, you would have to have a conspiracy
on line with JFK being assassinated by the Central
Intelligence Agency." One tipster claimed Shakur's close friend,
Marion "Suge" Knight, killed the rapper. More than 300 tips were
received, but only one appeared promising, claimed Manning.
"There was only one that piqued our interest to the point that it
appeared the individual probably has at least some information or
knowledge about the case. But they didn't leave a name or phone
number." [4]
Richard Fischbein, an attorney for the Shakur estate, complained
that Las Vegas police were not really interested in finding the
gunmen. "I've called and pushed and prodded them," he said, "and
these guys aren't doing anything. So that leaves us with the mother
forced into a position of having to deal with this situation on her
own, and that's an outrage. I have my own theory, and that is that
they're trying to create the Disneyland of the Far West in Las Vegas
and the last thing in the world that they want is a story about black-gang drive-by shootings taking place in their town. So this is not
something they're going to bring to a big trial that will be covered
by the national press." [5]
Afeni Shakur observed tersely, "It was clear to me from day one
that the Las Vegas police never had any interest in solving the case
of my son's murder." Yet the Associated Press reported five months
after the slaying: "Three Los Angeles men are suspects in the drive-by shooting of rap star Tupac Shakur, but police say uncooperative
witnesses have stymied their investigation." [6] Witnesses unanimously eny this statement and maintain that it was police who were "uncooperative."
In the Spring of 1997, a stink arose over the concealment of the
trigger-man's identity by Las Vegas police. "MTV News reported on
Tuesday that it had obtained a 29-page document prepared by police
in Compton, California, which was attached to a motion filed in
court by attorneys for Death Row Records chief Suge Knight. This
document reveals that only days after the shooting in Las Vegas of
rapper Tupac Shakur last September, cops already had the name of
the man gang informants say pulled the trigger."
Sergeant Manning acknowledged to reporters that detectives had
"no suspects" in the case -- nevertheless, Orlando Anderson had not
been "ruled out." The sergeant wasn't accusing anyone ... exactly.
"It
may be a play on words a little bit," he explained, "but that's just the
way we do business."
[7]
Official "word play" stoked the fog machine obscuring the identities of the killers, recalling the smears of political activists in the
COINTELPRO/CHAOS period. Compton police prepared an affidavit in October citing unnamed "informants" falsely placing
Anderson in gang activity. He was arrested during a sweep of the city
and questioned about another, unrelated case, the murder of Edward
Webb, but no charges were filed. Detectives from Las Vegas arrived
and grilled him about the Shakur killing but were unable to establish
a connection There was also no evidence that he had shot and killed
Webb. Deputy District Attorney Janet Moore released Anderson but
refused to explain her decision to reporters. [8]
While detained
for questioning, Anderson was publicly condemned by police, described falsely as a street thug and a murderer.
It was hinted at press conferences that Compton police had apprehended the killer of Tupac Shakur. But "if Orlando was indeed a
gang-banger," Details reported, "he certainly wasn't a run-of-the-mill
one. 'He wasn't that type of person at all,' says Tyrise Tooles, a
friend
and former classmate of Orlando's at Dominguez High School in Compton. 'He was a real friendly person."' The accused killer of
Shakur also attended William Howard Taft High in the Valley, a
school of advanced students. He was immersed in family life, had
never been convicted of a crime, did not indulge in drugs, even marijuana or tobacco, loved sports, planned on running his own
recording studio -- not exactly the profile of a gangsta Crip, as police
alleged. [9]
On March 21, Anderson spoke to reporters from CNN: "I want to
let everybody know ... I didn't do it," he said. "I been thinking that
maybe I'm like a scapegoat or something."
His lawyer, Edi M.O. Faal, was on hand for the interview, and
added, "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."
Anderson denied publicly that he was a member of the Crips, and
there is no indication that he ran with the gang, but police in his
hometown of Compton defamed him anyway. [10] The bogus charges
didn't help Anderson's reputation in Compton, particularly with the
Crips. After his release, he confided to his lawyer, "You know, I don't
think I'm going to have a long life." The comment was prophetic --
Orlando Anderson was shot and killed by a Corner Pocket Crip in a
street confrontation on May 29, 1998.
The Tupac Shakur GeoCities Web Site suggests that the famed
rapper was a political target, the latest in a series of covert
operations waged against his family:
The tale of Tupac Shakur, who lived so fast and died so young, is at
once more tender and more tragic than that of the woman-hating
thug we saw in stories about him. Quiet as it was kept by the media
and by Tupac himself, the effusively talented singer/writer/actor was
the heir apparent of a family of black revolutionaries, most of whom
wound up jailed, exiled or dead during the 1970s and 1980s. His ties
to the remarkable Shakur family must have been a weighty psychic
burden for the rap artist. The individual members of the extended clan
commanded almost mythic respect from radicals of the black power
period, especially in New York. This defining part of Tupac's background, incredibly, has been generally glossed over by the music and
social critics trying to make sense of the contradictions that permeated his life. Given the radical diehard commitment of those relatives,
it is no wonder that Tupac believed police agents were trailing him,
like hunters after their prey. What was truly amazing was the grace
with which, as an actor and rapper, he tied together feelings of love
with the righteous anger that was a family legacy.
Tupac Amaru Shakur was born in 1971 to Afeni Shakur, a Black
Panther, who carried the rapper-to-be in her womb while she was in
jail, accused in a bomb plot. The Manhattan District Attorney tried to
link 21 Panthers to the alleged plot, but the prosecutor's office found
itself red-faced when a jury quickly rejected the charges. It is now
believed the defendants were victims of an FBI-led attempt to neutralize Panther Party members across the country.
Afeni never revealed publicly who Tupac's father was. But one thing
she did acknowledge. That the father was not Afeni's husband,
Lumumba Shakur, who was the lead defendant in the Panther case.
Exhausted from the trial and angry at the romantic betrayal by Afeni,
Lumumba left his wife and her newborn son; but Afeni quickly moved
in with Lumumba's adopted brother, Mutulu, who would become
Tupac's stepfather and spiritual counselor for the rest of the younger
man's life. Those who knew the family describe Mutulu Shakur as the
most influential male figure in Tupac's life, the man who taught him to
stand up for himself and never to back down from a fight. But Mutulu,
later to be known as Dr. Shakur, because of his training in acupuncture, was eventually to be taken from Tupac.
In 1986, he was arrested
as the reputed mastermind of the 1981 Brinks robbery, in which two
Nayack, New York policemen and a Brinks guard were killed. To this
day, Dr. Shakur denies that he had anything to do with the holdup,
but he was nonetheless convicted and is now doing 60 years.
In an interview two years ago at the federal prison in Lewisburg,
Pennsylvania, where he was being held at the time, Dr. Shakur would
not say if he saw Tupac during the years he was on the run from the
Brinks charges. But it must have been painful for adolescent Tupac to
know agents were scouring black neighborhoods all over the country
looking for his stepfather. During this time, Afeni and Tupac moved
from Harlem to Baltimore. In an added trauma for Tupac, Lumumba
Shakur, who remained on good terms with the family, was found dead
in Louisiana several days before Mutulu was arrested. Mutulu says he
suspects Lumumba was murdered by someone (perhaps a police
informant) who learned of Mutulu's whereabouts and decided to kill
two birds with one stone, taking the two brothers out of circulation.
By this time, at age 15, Tupac must have been thoroughly convinced hat to be a Shakur was to confront the possibility of death at an early
age. He was learning such lessons almost before he could walk. In
1973, when Tupac was a toddler, his uncle, Zayd Shakur, was traveling
on the New Jersey Turnpike with his companion, Assata Shakur, when
they were stopped by a trooper. In a shoot-out that followed, Zayd
and Trooper Werner Foerster lay dead. Assata, once known as Jo Anne
Chesimard, was wounded and later charged and convicted in the
killing of the trooper. Taking the legend of the Shakurs to new
heights, Assata escaped from prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba, where
she is living now under a grant of asylum from the government of
Fidel Castro. Assata, dubbed the "soul" of the Black Liberation Army,
is arguably the most famous member of Tupac's extended family. Even
as he climbed the ladder of stardom and fought publicized battles
with the law -- including the sex assault case and an allegation that he
wounded a police officer in Georgia, Tupac stayed in close contact
with his stepfather Mutulu, talking with him by phone and seeking
advice from him. Mutulu (born Jeral Wayne Williams) maintains he
was having an impact on the young man, guiding him from street
instincts and post-adolescent confusion, into a more coherent use of
his energies.
Mutulu praised the tender songs that Tupac would write, the ones
with positive messages about family life and responsibility, like
"Brenda's Got a Baby." Together, the step-father-and-son team drew
up a "Code of Thug Life," which was a list of rules discouraging
random violence among gansta rappers. All of this was done away
from the glare of media attention, and perhaps there was good reason
why Tupac did not want to publicize his relationship with Mutulu. He
was already taking enough heat from local police around the country.
Why aggravate the situation by further provoking federal agents who
might have been monitoring Mutulu and his revolutionary associates?
After all, federal authorities were known to be still interested in capturing Assata, who was close to Mutulu. Assata says she escaped from
jail in 1979 because she had learned of a plan to have white prisoners
assassinate her. Federal authorities said Mutulu was part of the team
that broke Assata out of prison. It is perhaps difficult for some to
remember the passion that Assata and her associates inspired in the
law enforcement community. After I first wrote about Assata in 1987,
I did a phone interview with FBI official Ken Walton, who was prominent in the effort to capture her after her jail break. He told me in
measured, angry words that he "or somebody like me" will one day
capture Assata and bring her back to the States.
Esysni Tyehimba, Tupac's personal manager, has long been a friend
of the Shakur family. Tyehimba recalls that they dealt extensively
with COINTELPRO issues. "We worked around a lot of political
prisoners and, the black liberation movement over the years in different locations. This [shaped Tupac into] the person that he was."
Tyehimba's family operated the Center for Black Survival. "We had a
youth group called the New Afrikan Panthers, and [Tupac] became
the chairperson of that organization." The very first song Tupac
recorded was "Panther Power." Karen Lee, a publicist and friend of the
Shakur family, recalls early attempts by authorities to discredit the
rap
singer when he was coming to terms with his growing popularity
"Tupac couldn't understand why it was front-page news when he was
arrested that time in Atlanta" for shooting a pair of white, off-duty
cops on October 31, 1993. Lee told reporters in the rap press that
when the charges were dropped, "and one police officer involved was
found guilty [of firing at Shakur and making false statements], it was a
story on, like, page 85 that nobody knew anything about." [11]
Tupac was booked on a rape charge the following year. During
the trial in November 1997, he was robbed on the street and shot
five times. Tupac checked out of the hospital the same day and
appeared in court the next. He was sentenced on February 5, 1995
to four-and-a-half years at Rikers Island Prison in New York, but was
released when Knight posted a $1.4-million bond eight months
later. Charles Fuller, the band's road manager and a co-defendent in
the sexual assault case, maintains that they'd been set up by the legal
system. "Right before we got sentenced," he recalls, "Tupac said that
he felt like an injustice was being
done to us." [12]
The agony of the rap industry
was exacerbated on March 9,
1997 by the killing of 24-year-old
Brooklyn rap artist Christopher
Wallace, otherwise known as
Notorious BIG, in Los Angeles.
On March 10, MTV News
reported:
NOTORIOUS B.I.G.
The 24-year old Brooklyn rapper,
whose real name was Christopher
Wallace, had attended the annual
Soul Train music awards and was
sitting in his GMC Suburban after
leaving a post-ceremony party
thrown by Vibe magazine at Los Angeles' Petersen Automotive
Museum. Police say an unidentified gunman riddled the vehicle with
bullets, and Wallace was then rushed to Cedars Sinai, where he was
pronounced dead. The killing of B.I.G. was the second in the last six
months, the first coming with the shooting death of Tupac Shakur in
Las Vegas last September. Despite the fact that the shooting
occurred outside a party that reportedly boasted 1,000 guests, police
told reporters they have few leads in the case ...
Biggie Smalls was a central figure in the alleged ongoing feud between the East coast and West coast rap camps, and particularly
between Bad Boy Entertainment and Suge Knight's Death Row
Records. Despite the fact that Bad Boy head Sean "Puffy" Combs and
Death Row rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg made a very public statement
recently announcing that there is no feud, Smalls' death led many to
speculate that the shooting could have been related to the perceived
ill-will between east coast and west coast rappers. However, sources
close to Bad Boy and Death Row quickly dismissed the speculation in a
Los Angeles Times report: "This was a professional hit," an
unidentified
source told reporters for the newspaper.
Law enforcement officials and the media speculated that the
shooting was the culmination of a supposed East Coast West Coast
rivalry. But Phyllis Pollack, a publicist with Def Press in Los Angeles
offered that the "feud" was but a publicity stunt. "It's
unfair to speculate that the deaths were the result of a coastal feud," she insisted.
"Sure, there's been this competition, but that's been since day
one.
We don't have artists on the West Coast saying, 'Let's kill off all of
those East Coast rappers so we can sell more records on the East
Coast."' Jesse Washington, managing editor of Vibe magazine, noted
there was some enmity between the rappers, but cautioned against
writing off the murder as a result of it. "It's too early to attribute
this
to a coastal rivalry, Tupac revenge or anything else because there
[are] just so many different possibilities and aspects to this whole
situation," he said. "The saddest thing about all of this is they have
literally generated tens of millions of dollars in sales of records,
magazine sales and ratings," he said. "I mean, these were two
popular artists." [13]
Once again, there were no suspects and police were reportedly
stymied. But Mutulu Shakur lived with political assassinations his
entire adult life, and looked elsewhere for the identities of the culprits in a letter to the Wallace family under the heading, "The Shakur
Family Extends Our Sympathies to Ms. Wallace, Sister Faith, and
Brother Biggie's Son and Daughter."
To Biggie's Family
We believe the loss of Biggie and Tupac will have a tremendous
impact on our younger generation. When all the facts are received
and analyzed, it will show through all the negative and false accusations. Brother Biggie acted in a principled way toward our son and
his public actions were principled by their very nature which was true
to the life game in which he lived. Our family has not come to any
final conclusion as to who killed our son, Tupac, nor why he was
killed. His murder and the death of Yafeu "Kadafi" Fula, son of
Yaasmyn Fula and POW Sekou Odinga, a month after Tupac, and
the senseless murder of Javana Thomas, the daughter of Freedom
Fighter Innie Thomas and the late BLA commander John Thomas,
has our family and extended family in constant grief as well as
searching for the truth in all matters ...
We are continuing our investigation as to determining the truth.
We do know that Brother Biggie was a part of an industry that has been
under attack from the highest form of government officials. They have
targeted Tupac, Sister Souljah, Ice T, Ice Cube, and Snoop Dogg to just
name a few. The object of this attack reportedly was the lyrics' contents and the connection to crime. "If" this was the only case,
why
would devil worshipers (music and artist) not be hounded out also?
Since they openly worship the devil in a so-called God-fearing
country (Their music and profane religion outright denounces the
government while preaching mayhem, destruction and even death to
their parents, government and even nonbelievers in their philosophical
satanism). Yes, we must take responsibility for our own actions.
We must acknowledge that we have powers to shape minds and
souls. Tupac, Biggie and Yafeu all could bring us closer to the real
deal
or turn us in upon ourselves. That power is not easy to comprehend
when your only goal is to "come up." The struggle of saving and
speaking has been a tremendous task for most if not all leaders. But
this government, and those who have profited from the music culture
of Black people, really know "power" and how to utilize it both internally and externally. Their goal has been long range and very specific
to their economical survival and political agenda, whereas our loved
ones, our rappers, wanted to explain their pain and identity from
where they came, and describe their present life and at times asked us
to hope for a better tomorrow, if all things were fair. If our family's
(SHAKUR's) lack of response to rumors and allegations contributed
to any confusion as to what principle we stand on, let it be known and
clear!! We do not believe in COINCIDENCES. We believe history
has demonstrated that the murders of Black people (young and old)
who can have a profound impact, those who refuse to "bow down,"
even if they themselves are not clear on the reasons why, have and
will be targeted by the government at its highest level. These murders
have historically proven over time to have the hand of government
secret agents or the stimulation by the government for negative
response, and was initiated by these agents working on behalf of the
government and their secret agendas.
We mourn Brother Biggie and Tupac with the rest of the Black Nation
because they (our son, brother, father and leader in their own rights)
have
clearly been victims of a set of circumstances implemented outside of
their control [or] ability to influence. I disagree with the method of discussing issues of our internal contradictions in the entertainment media.
Tupac in his Makaveli record clearly changed his wrongful view of who
shot him [in 1994] and who was heading it in New York, and why?
That's not to say that we know the Makaveli allegations [are] correct,
only that any "fan" of Tupac's would surely have known that Tupac
revised his wrongful [stance] against Biggie's involvement concerning
his shooting in New York. And he wanted his" fans" to know it.
It is
common knowledge that Brother Biggie was under surveillance by the
FBI or other government agents. And his every movement was reportedly being watched concerning a parole or possible parole violation.
How come those agents did not protect him, or at least apprehend or
pursue the people who did the shooting (and the same must be said for
my son Tupac)? The tactics by law enforcement agencies in the past have been to arrest these high profile artists on gun violations. Leaving
them in a "Catch 22" situation to violate parole by defending themselves. Or leaving themselves defenseless, making them easy prey for a
would-be assassin and stick-up kid. Surely, the FBI was at the party ...
What we must understand is that our warriors are needed when it
has been proven beyond contradiction that the CIA were principal
importers of Crack Cocaine and Cocaine period into the hood, initiating the newly created drug laws that were blatantly racially motivated to set into motion tactics of genocide to destroy and lock away
our brothers and sisters for the rest of their lives.
They have also created conditions that breed the worst in us. Look
at how long the struggle in South Africa was extended because of the
fighting of (African on African) Zulas against A.N.C. and P.A.A.C. Rap
music and the Hip-Hop nation is a movement unclear of its final objectives, but a movement nevertheless, with potentials this government
already fully understands and is prepared to destroy. If we look back in
our history on the Black Nationalist Movement, the assassination of
Bunchy Carter and John Huggins, two great Panthers on the West
Coast, by the members of U.S. organizations run by Mr. Ron Karanga.
After years of my investigation as a member of the National Task
Force for COINTELPRO Litigation Research, in connection with
Geronimo Ji Jagas' [Pratt] trial, [I am aware that] the motivation and
participation in the murders by the FBI has been proven beyond a
doubt. The murder-assassination of Robert Webb, a West Coast
Panther functioning out of New York, killed on 125th St. and 7th Ave.,
sparked a vengeful killing of another great Panther, Sam Napier. The
assassination of Robert Webb was revealed to be FBI motivated as well
as their direct participation in his assassination which in design was
to
split the East Coast and West Coast connection. At that time, many of
us functioned out of our emotions and ignorance and played into it.
These types of specified killings helped to destroy our movement,
accomplishing the governments' goals. Don't go for it!!! Learn from our
past mistakes. Act at all times by rationale and reasoning. We do not
want the death of Tupac or Biggie to be used as a base for internal fractional side contradictions.
Nor for Biggie and Tupac to be used to fuel
further strife, dissension and destruction internally by the
Federal/Mass
Media governing the situation. In the name of Biggie and Tupac, stop
playing yourselves, and start putting resources into the real struggle.
Show love to your warriors, pay attention to the game that's being
played on/against us. SEARCH FOR TRUTH!!! Don't look at who shot
Biggie and Tupac, but WHY they were shot. Don't be fooled by the
media that (seldom if ever had a kind word for rappers) has never shown
real concern for [our] welfare. STOP FAKING TUFF ... BE TUFF!!!
To all the Thugs, Live by the code, protect yourselves at ALL times.
Failure to do so could cost us all.
SINCERELY,
DR. MUTULU SHAKUR, STIFF RESISTANCE. [14]
Mutulu Shakur's deduction that secret police assigned to the surveillance of Biggy Small must have witnessed the murder proved
correct. Unfortunately, none of the undercover agents from Los
Angeles and New York who saw the killing stepped forward to provide
investigators with a description of the gunmen -- a violation of law
regardless of their failure to intercede in the killing or pursue gunmen.
As the Las Vegas Sun reported in April: "At least one police officer
and
possibly as many as six acted as security guards for The Notorious
BIG. and may have witnessed his slaying. ... However, none came
forward to say they were there, including the one off-duty officer who
was in a car directly behind the rapper." Damion Butler, Small's road
manager: "If they were there all that time ... it just seems impossible
to me that they didn't see the incident. Where did they go?" It so
happened that plainclothes police officers from New York were in the area,
according to spokesmen, during the shooting as part of "a federal
investigation of the Rap industry."
But the Justice Department and
police in Los Angeles and New York have all refused to comment on the
presence of undercover officers at the murder scene.
[15]
On February 5, MTV News reported that the Las Vegas Police
Department was skeptical an arrest could be made unless more witnesses stepped forward
-- yet all of the undercover officers at the
murder site participated in a conspiracy of silence. They would doubtless have offered to give depositions and attend
line-ups if the killers
had been gang-bangers. Mutulu Shakur's conviction that secret police
killed his stepson and Notorious BIG proves increasingly feasible.
Any civilian witness would have quite possibly been prosecuted for
withholding evidence in an ongoing homicide investigation, but only
one of the officers who witnessed the killing and stonewalled was disciplined. In August, an off-
duty cop moonlighting as a bodyguard for
Smalls the night of the murder, was threatened with a 24-day suspension. Inglewood Police Chief Alex Perez told the press that the
unnamed officer's violations "ranged, on the low end, from failure to
obtain a permit to work off-duty, ranging all the way to conduct unbecoming an officer." Furthermore, it emerged that the police officer
hired to work the rapper's security detail had "a criminal record."
[16]
The blue wall of silence encircles a leading suspect in the Smalls
case, David A. Mack, a former LAPD officer since convicted of bank
robbery and currently serving a 14-year sentence. Police files contain a
note that an eyewitness had placed Mack at the murder scene. Another
reports that Mack hired an old friend to shoot Smalls Amir
Muhammad, alias Harry Billups, the old friend, had been a classmate of
Mack's at the University of Oregon. He disappeared after visiting Mack
in prison on December 26, 1977, and police are still searching for him.
[17]
Periodically, LAPD officials hint that Death Row's Suge Knight may
have had a hand in the killings of Notorious B.IG. Robin Yanes,
Knight's attorney, emphatically denies police claims of a connection to
Mack. "A year ago it came and they're recycling it to cover their butts.
Suge doesn't know Mack." [18] The same tactics used to shift suspicion
from undercover agents to Orlando Anderson in the Shakur case have
been hauled out to connect Knight to the "retaliatory" hit on Smalls.
In April 1999, it was widely reported that Knight was "under investigation." Search warrants were handed around at the record label's
headquarters and other locations, and a purple Chevrolet Impala
owned by the company was impounded. But there were no arrests, and
no charges have been filed. Police spokesmen refused to comment on
why Knight was considered a "suspect." "He was in custody at the time,
so he didn't pull the trigger," Lieutenant Al Michelena, speaking for
the
LAPD's robbery-homicide unit, told reporters. "We are investigating
the possibility of him being implicated in this. We would certainly
consider him a possible suspect." More police "word play"?
Michelena
refused to discuss a possible motive and all documents related to the
search warrants were sealed. The purple Chevy was owned by Death
Row, but hadn't been registered for about two years and was believed
to have not been used during this period, Michelena explained. To
date, no evidence has surfaced linking Knight to the shooting of Biggie
Smalls, he has not been prosecuted, yet police spokesmen continue to
imply that he is a "suspect." [19]
At present the murders of Tupac Shakur, Biggie Small
-- also Yaefu
Fula, Rolling 60 Crip Jelly Johnson, Jake Robles, Randy "Stretch"
Walker and Genius-Car-Wash-Owner Bruce -- remain "unsolved."
NOTES
1. William Shaw, "Wrong
Man, Wrong Place, Wrong Time?" Details,
September 1999, p 193.
2. Cathy Scott, "Behind the Scenes of 'Unsolved' Shakur Mystery,"
Las Vegas Sun, March 14, 1997.
3. "Witness to Tupac Murder Killed," E! Online News Service, November
14, 1996.
4. Anonymous, "Callers say Shakur's death just a bad rap," Las Vegas
Review
Journal, March 22, 1997.
5. Neil Strauss, "Change of Story in Shakur Case," Las Vegas Sun, March 18,
1998, courtesy of the New York Times.
6. AP Release, "Cops Eye Three in Shakur Murder," Nevada Business
Journal,
February 4, 1997.
7. Shaw, p. 197.
8. Shaw, p. 196.
9. Shaw, p. 194.
10. Anonymous, "Orlando Anderson Speaks About Tupac Murder,"
MTV
News Gallery. The segment originally aired on March 21, 1997.
11. Friends and family of Tupac Shakur, "Back 2 the Essence," Vibe
magazine
special commemorative issue, October 1999, pp. 103-107.
12. Vibe interview, p. 107.
13. AP release, "Is the 'Rap War' for Real?" March 10, 1997.
14. Mutulu Shakur letter, Fortune City Tupac Shakur website.
15. AP release, "Police Saw Rapper Shooting," Las
Vegas Sun, April 23,
1997.
16. Michael Goldberg, ed., "Notorious B.I.G. Security Guard Suspended
--
Off-duty cop who worked for Biggie the night he was murdered had
criminal record," Music News of the World, Aug 2, 1997.
17. Matt Lait and Scott Glover, "Ex-LAPD Officer is Suspect in Rapper's
Slaying, Records Show," Los Angeles Times, December 9, 1999, p. A-1.
18. Ibid, p. A-43.
19. AP release, "Knight Investigated in B.I.G. Murder," Las Vegas Sun,
April
21, 1999.
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