LAS VEGAS -- Six years ago today, rap and film star Tupac Shakur was fatally wounded in a drive-by shooting on a crowded street a block from the Las Vegas Strip.
Despite the public setting and the victim's notoriety, no one has ever been arrested for the killing. Shakur's family, many of his followers and some black entertainers cite the case as evidence of a double standard in the justice system. Had a white celebrity been gunned down in the open, they contend, police would have found those responsible without delay.
Las Vegas police say their investigation stalled not for lack of effort, but because witnesses in Shakur's entourage refused to cooperate.
That, however, is only part of the explanation. A Times review found that police committed a string of costly missteps:
They discounted an incident, hours before the shooting, in which Shakur took part in the beating of a gang member in a Las Vegas hotel lobby.
They failed to follow up with a member of Shakur's entourage who witnessed the shooting and told police he might be able to identify one or more of the assailants. The witness was killed several weeks later in an unrelated shooting.
They did not pursue a lead about a sighting of a rented white Cadillac similar to the car from which the fatal shots were fired at Shakur and in which the assailants escaped.
Las Vegas homicide Sgt. Kevin Manning, who oversaw the investigation, defended his department's work. He said detectives fielded thousands of phone tips, interviewed hundreds of witnesses and chased numerous leads during a year when the homicide unit was besieged with a record 168 murders.
"Tupac got the same treatment as any other homicide here," said Manning. "But you know what? We can't do it alone. We rely on cooperative citizens to step forward and help us solve crimes. And in Tupac's case, we got no cooperation whatsoever."
The Times reported Friday that court documents as well as interviews with investigators and gang members, including witnesses to the crime, indicate that Shakur was attacked by the Southside Crips, a Compton gang, to avenge the earlier beating of one of their members. The Times also reported that the man who had been beaten fired the fatal shots.
The following account of how the Las Vegas police investigation went aground is based on the same sources and on interviews with Nevada police, six Los Angeles-area investigators involved in the probe and three independent gang experts.
Gang killings are extremely difficult to solve because there is usually little evidence and few witnesses are willing to talk. Shakur's associates were particularly unlikely to volunteer information. Like the rapper himself, many had criminal records and a deep-seated hostility toward police. To some extent, the feeling was mutual: Shakur first gained notoriety with lyrics depicting violence against police.
There was a deeper problem: Las Vegas police were slow to grasp that the roots of the killing lay in a feud between rival gangs in Compton, and were slow to act once they did realize it. To identify those responsible, police would have to take their investigation to Compton and develop informants within the gangs.
The Vegas cops were ill-suited to do that. They had little experience with gang investigations or gang culture. The Compton Police Department did have entree to the gang underworld. Its investigators had known many gang members since they were babies. They took their first mug shots. They testified at their trials. They visited them in jail. In return, they often got valuable information.
But Las Vegas police worried that the Compton investigators were too close to the gangs and their rap-industry patrons and might leak information. The Vegas detectives kept their distance from the gang squad, and their investigation quickly hit a dead end.
"How is a cop from Vegas supposed to go out to Compton and get a powerful street gang to cooperate in a murder probe?" asked Jared Lewis, a Modesto police detective who is director of Know Gangs, a group that presents seminars on gang homicides for police agencies nationwide.
"Gang homicide investigations are very complex," he said. "This was no easy case to solve, by any stretch of the imagination. I can understand why it ended up the way it has."
Sept. 7, 1996
On the evening of Sept. 7, 1996, Shakur and his record company chief, Marion "Suge" Knight, attended the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon heavyweight boxing match at the MGM Grand Hotel. Also in Las Vegas for the fight were scores of gang members from Los Angeles.
As he was leaving the hotel after the fight, Shakur attacked a man in the MGM lobby. Shakur's bodyguards and Knight joined in the beating. The victim was Orlando Anderson, 21, a member of the Southside Crips. Shakur and Knight were affiliated with a rival Compton gang, the Mob Piru Bloods. Shakur's bodyguards were members of the Bloods.
The Bloods had been spoiling for revenge against Anderson because he had beaten one of their members at a Lakewood shopping mall several weeks earlier.
Now, the attack on Anderson became the basis for another act of retaliation--this time against Shakur. The rap star was shot 2 1/2 hours later as he and Knight waited at a red light on a street teeming with tourists and other onlookers. The shots were fired from a white Cadillac carrying four Crips. Shakur suffered massive chest wounds and died a week later.
Immediately after the shooting, the assailants returned to Compton, where they bragged to their friends and girlfriends. The Compton gang unit was soon deluged with tips implicating the Crips and "Baby Lane," Anderson's gang nickname. Informants reported that Anderson had been seen brandishing a Glock semiautomatic pistol, the kind of weapon used to kill Shakur. Investigators passed this information on to Las Vegas.
Las Vegas police had heard about the beating in the MGM Grand lobby and reviewed a security videotape of it. But they did not know who Anderson was or why the incident mattered. Manning, the homicide commander, issued a statement at the time saying, "Investigators have no reason ... to believe that the altercation has any connection to the shooting."
A week after the shooting, Compton gang investigators reviewed the videotape at the request of Las Vegas police. They identified the beating victim as Anderson, explained his gang affiliation and said the bodyguards seen flailing at him were Bloods.
"We told Vegas right then we thought the Southside Crips were responsible for the murder and that Orlando was the shooter," said Bobby Ladd, then a homicide investigator with the Compton gang unit and now a Garden Grove police officer.
Las Vegas police stuck to their position that the beating was irrelevant. Manning told an interviewer, "It appears to be just an individual who was walking through the MGM and got into an argument with Tupac.... He probably didn't even know it was Tupac Shakur."
Having ruled Anderson out as a suspect, Las Vegas police did not try to track him down for questioning or show his photograph to members of Shakur's entourage, a dozen of whom remained in Las Vegas for a week after the shooting while the rapper fought for his life in a local hospital.
Police also failed to retrieve additional security video that might have captured Anderson's movements after he was beaten. Security cameras are pervasive in Las Vegas, sweeping hotel lobbies, hallways, parking areas and other public places around the clock.
Crips gang members say Anderson and his accomplices passed in front of video cameras as they gathered at the Treasure Island and MGM Grand hotels to plot the killing and, later that night, when they picked up the white Cadillac in the valet parking circle outside Treasure Island.
Because casinos routinely tape over surveillance footage every seven days, the potential evidence was lost.
"Overlooking the gang fight at the MGM was a mistake," said Wes McBride, president of the California Gang Investigators Assn. A retired gang intelligence sergeant for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Operation Safe Streets division, McBride runs a gang training program for police academies.
"In gang culture, that fight was a killing offense," he said. "If you embarrass a gang member in public, they will retaliate with a vengeance."
Lou Savelli, a New York gang-unit sergeant and vice president of the East Coast Gang Investigators Assn., concurred.
"If a drive-by shooting happened in New York and we found out that there was a gang beating three hours earlier involving the murder victim, I guarantee that would be my No. 1 lead," he said.
Manning now says Las Vegas police may have misjudged the significance of the fight in the MGM lobby. In a recent interview, he said police discounted Anderson as a suspect based on information that he had been detained by hotel security long enough that he would not have had time to arm himself and organize the Crips' ambush of Shakur several hours later.
Manning said that information had proved incorrect. He declined to elaborate.
Working With Gang Members
Investigators say it takes special effort to develop a rapport with gang members. Because gang culture places a premium on respect, gang detectives will treat thugs and their families with great courtesy, even deference. In return, they sometimes provide confidential information that helps solve crimes.
Despite the public setting and the victim's notoriety, no one has ever been arrested for the killing. Shakur's family, many of his followers and some black entertainers cite the case as evidence of a double standard in the justice system. Had a white celebrity been gunned down in the open, they contend, police would have found those responsible without delay.
Las Vegas police say their investigation stalled not for lack of effort, but because witnesses in Shakur's entourage refused to cooperate.
That, however, is only part of the explanation. A Times review found that police committed a string of costly missteps:
They discounted an incident, hours before the shooting, in which Shakur took part in the beating of a gang member in a Las Vegas hotel lobby.
They failed to follow up with a member of Shakur's entourage who witnessed the shooting and told police he might be able to identify one or more of the assailants. The witness was killed several weeks later in an unrelated shooting.
They did not pursue a lead about a sighting of a rented white Cadillac similar to the car from which the fatal shots were fired at Shakur and in which the assailants escaped.
Las Vegas homicide Sgt. Kevin Manning, who oversaw the investigation, defended his department's work. He said detectives fielded thousands of phone tips, interviewed hundreds of witnesses and chased numerous leads during a year when the homicide unit was besieged with a record 168 murders.
"Tupac got the same treatment as any other homicide here," said Manning. "But you know what? We can't do it alone. We rely on cooperative citizens to step forward and help us solve crimes. And in Tupac's case, we got no cooperation whatsoever."
The Times reported Friday that court documents as well as interviews with investigators and gang members, including witnesses to the crime, indicate that Shakur was attacked by the Southside Crips, a Compton gang, to avenge the earlier beating of one of their members. The Times also reported that the man who had been beaten fired the fatal shots.
The following account of how the Las Vegas police investigation went aground is based on the same sources and on interviews with Nevada police, six Los Angeles-area investigators involved in the probe and three independent gang experts.
Gang killings are extremely difficult to solve because there is usually little evidence and few witnesses are willing to talk. Shakur's associates were particularly unlikely to volunteer information. Like the rapper himself, many had criminal records and a deep-seated hostility toward police. To some extent, the feeling was mutual: Shakur first gained notoriety with lyrics depicting violence against police.
There was a deeper problem: Las Vegas police were slow to grasp that the roots of the killing lay in a feud between rival gangs in Compton, and were slow to act once they did realize it. To identify those responsible, police would have to take their investigation to Compton and develop informants within the gangs.
The Vegas cops were ill-suited to do that. They had little experience with gang investigations or gang culture. The Compton Police Department did have entree to the gang underworld. Its investigators had known many gang members since they were babies. They took their first mug shots. They testified at their trials. They visited them in jail. In return, they often got valuable information.
But Las Vegas police worried that the Compton investigators were too close to the gangs and their rap-industry patrons and might leak information. The Vegas detectives kept their distance from the gang squad, and their investigation quickly hit a dead end.
"How is a cop from Vegas supposed to go out to Compton and get a powerful street gang to cooperate in a murder probe?" asked Jared Lewis, a Modesto police detective who is director of Know Gangs, a group that presents seminars on gang homicides for police agencies nationwide.
"Gang homicide investigations are very complex," he said. "This was no easy case to solve, by any stretch of the imagination. I can understand why it ended up the way it has."
Sept. 7, 1996
On the evening of Sept. 7, 1996, Shakur and his record company chief, Marion "Suge" Knight, attended the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon heavyweight boxing match at the MGM Grand Hotel. Also in Las Vegas for the fight were scores of gang members from Los Angeles.
As he was leaving the hotel after the fight, Shakur attacked a man in the MGM lobby. Shakur's bodyguards and Knight joined in the beating. The victim was Orlando Anderson, 21, a member of the Southside Crips. Shakur and Knight were affiliated with a rival Compton gang, the Mob Piru Bloods. Shakur's bodyguards were members of the Bloods.
The Bloods had been spoiling for revenge against Anderson because he had beaten one of their members at a Lakewood shopping mall several weeks earlier.
Now, the attack on Anderson became the basis for another act of retaliation--this time against Shakur. The rap star was shot 2 1/2 hours later as he and Knight waited at a red light on a street teeming with tourists and other onlookers. The shots were fired from a white Cadillac carrying four Crips. Shakur suffered massive chest wounds and died a week later.
Immediately after the shooting, the assailants returned to Compton, where they bragged to their friends and girlfriends. The Compton gang unit was soon deluged with tips implicating the Crips and "Baby Lane," Anderson's gang nickname. Informants reported that Anderson had been seen brandishing a Glock semiautomatic pistol, the kind of weapon used to kill Shakur. Investigators passed this information on to Las Vegas.
Las Vegas police had heard about the beating in the MGM Grand lobby and reviewed a security videotape of it. But they did not know who Anderson was or why the incident mattered. Manning, the homicide commander, issued a statement at the time saying, "Investigators have no reason ... to believe that the altercation has any connection to the shooting."
A week after the shooting, Compton gang investigators reviewed the videotape at the request of Las Vegas police. They identified the beating victim as Anderson, explained his gang affiliation and said the bodyguards seen flailing at him were Bloods.
"We told Vegas right then we thought the Southside Crips were responsible for the murder and that Orlando was the shooter," said Bobby Ladd, then a homicide investigator with the Compton gang unit and now a Garden Grove police officer.
Las Vegas police stuck to their position that the beating was irrelevant. Manning told an interviewer, "It appears to be just an individual who was walking through the MGM and got into an argument with Tupac.... He probably didn't even know it was Tupac Shakur."
Having ruled Anderson out as a suspect, Las Vegas police did not try to track him down for questioning or show his photograph to members of Shakur's entourage, a dozen of whom remained in Las Vegas for a week after the shooting while the rapper fought for his life in a local hospital.
Police also failed to retrieve additional security video that might have captured Anderson's movements after he was beaten. Security cameras are pervasive in Las Vegas, sweeping hotel lobbies, hallways, parking areas and other public places around the clock.
Crips gang members say Anderson and his accomplices passed in front of video cameras as they gathered at the Treasure Island and MGM Grand hotels to plot the killing and, later that night, when they picked up the white Cadillac in the valet parking circle outside Treasure Island.
Because casinos routinely tape over surveillance footage every seven days, the potential evidence was lost.
"Overlooking the gang fight at the MGM was a mistake," said Wes McBride, president of the California Gang Investigators Assn. A retired gang intelligence sergeant for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Operation Safe Streets division, McBride runs a gang training program for police academies.
"In gang culture, that fight was a killing offense," he said. "If you embarrass a gang member in public, they will retaliate with a vengeance."
Lou Savelli, a New York gang-unit sergeant and vice president of the East Coast Gang Investigators Assn., concurred.
"If a drive-by shooting happened in New York and we found out that there was a gang beating three hours earlier involving the murder victim, I guarantee that would be my No. 1 lead," he said.
Manning now says Las Vegas police may have misjudged the significance of the fight in the MGM lobby. In a recent interview, he said police discounted Anderson as a suspect based on information that he had been detained by hotel security long enough that he would not have had time to arm himself and organize the Crips' ambush of Shakur several hours later.
Manning said that information had proved incorrect. He declined to elaborate.
Working With Gang Members
Investigators say it takes special effort to develop a rapport with gang members. Because gang culture places a premium on respect, gang detectives will treat thugs and their families with great courtesy, even deference. In return, they sometimes provide confidential information that helps solve crimes.