They were the kings.
They were at the top of the realm.
The number one East coast rapper,
and the number one West coast rapper.
Both kings were dethroned...
[gunshots firing]
...by bullets.
[reporter 1] After being shot in a drive-by shooting,
rapper Tupac Shakur has passed away in a Las Vegas hospital.
[gunshots firing]
[reporter 2] Biggie Smalls was shot and killed after leaving a party here
at the Petersen Museum.
Who killed Biggie and Tupac are two of the biggest unsolved cases
in modern American history.
[Phil Carson] Somebody stated,
"It’s not worth solving the murder of a 400 pound black rapper
who used to be a cocaine dealer."
And possibly ruining the working relationship
between the FBI and the LAPD.
[Voletta Wallace] I’ve labored with pain
and sweat just to find out the truth of what happened to my son.
This has been goin’ on for 25 years, tryin’ to figure this out.
It’s probably the most outrageous case
that’s never been prosecuted in the city of L. A.
[Stephanie Frederic] You’ve got the murders
of two of the most iconic rappers of all time.
You have Bloods and Crips.
You’ve got dirty cops.
There’s corruption. There’s jealousy.
And there’s a coverup.
[Carson] There were numerous people
that had to help orchestrate to pull this thing off, especially in public.
The conspiracy theorists will suggest that the murder of Biggie Smalls
was some type of sophisticated hit.
The two investigators involved in this case,
a former LAPD detective and an ex-FBI agent,
come up with two different conclusions.
This was an ambush, this isn’t some random act.
[Greg Kading] This was nothing more than a gang drive-by shooting.
He’s just wrong. He is wrong.
[Kading] I 100% believe that we solved the Biggie case.
If you think you’ve solved the case, then file it.
For the first time, an informant who had been afraid to show his face
is coming forward.
Uh, they threatened to have me stabbed in prison.
And, uh, they tried to shut me up at all costs.
The truth will come out.
Peace.
[reporter 1] Biggie was hailed as the king of East Coast rap
before his murder back in 1997.
His family are now suing the city of Los Angeles.
[Voletta Wallace] My son was murdered and I needed answers.
But no one was giving me an answer, and I had to do something.
[reporter 2] No arrests were ever made.
And now Biggie Smalls’ family are claiming there’s been a coverup,
and that off-duty police officers were involved in the shooting.
In 2002, 5 years after Biggie’s murder...
...there had been no arrests and no progress in the official investigation.
The Wallace family filed the biggest wrongful death lawsuit
in the city of Los Angeles’ history.
Alleging that LAPD dirty cops were involved in Biggie’s murder.
They ripped lives apart...
...whoever did it.
This is a human being that was gunned down so viciously.
And I felt that more effort should be put into solving the murder.
As the lawsuit worked its way through the court,
there was an estimation that Biggie’s lifetime earning potential
could be upwards of $400 million.
And with the potential of $400 million lawsuit looming over their heads,
the department needed to determine whether or not there was any truth
behind these allegations.
You crackers knocked my man off.
-Crackers! -Stop, stop.
-But they gonna take that off, they gonna take that off. -Crackers knocked my man off.
[bleep] that.
Let my words be absorbed.
You crackers knocked my man off.
You wanna think it’s a two party state.
-[man] Uh-huh. -[man 2] Suge Knight state.
You mother[bleep] think that.
[fading] Let it be known. I’ll let you know now.
Uh, my name is Greg Kading, I’m a retired LAPD homicide detective.
In 2006, I was asked to join a federal task force
to take a new look, a... a fresh look,
into the unsolved murder of Christopher Wallace, AKA Biggie Smalls.
The lawsuit was filed because of allegations
that LAPD was either complicit in the murder...
...or complicit in covering up the murder.
I asked very directly "You know, is our job here to solve this murder...
...or are we here to mitigate the damages to the department?"
And I was told, "We were gonna go wherever the facts lead us."
My name is Stephanie Frederic.
In the ’90s, I was a television news reporter in Los Angeles.
So, as the West Coast correspondent for Black Entertainment Television,
I covered black Los Angeles, I covered black Hollywood.
Hip hop was huge at the time.
In the mid-1990s, you had two major rap labels dominating the genre.
On the East Coast, there was Bad Boy Records,
run by Sean "Puffy" Combs.
Sometimes he went by just Puffy.
And his major artist was Notorious B. I. G.
On the West coast, it was Death Row Records, led by CEO Suge Knight.
With major artists Snoop Doggy Dogg, Dr. Dre, and later on Tupac Shakur.
Both of these record labels came straight from the streets.
Death Row Records? Straight out of Compton.
Bad Boy Records? Straight off the streets of New York.
And these guys rapped about what they knew,
and what was happening in their neighborhoods.
So if they saw guns, they saw gangsters...
...you know, there were drugs, they talked about it.
These guys were spitting out hit after hit after hit.
So here you have Bad Boy and Death Row battling to be number one.
Everything was cool at first.
And then somewhere along the way, that competition...
...turned into an East Coast- West Coast rap feud.
No one thought this friendly competition would turn deadly.
But it did.
[reporter] After being shot earlier this week in a drive-by shooting...
rapper Tupac Shakur has now passed away in a Las Vegas hospital.
[Kading] Tupac Shakur was shot on September 7th of 1996,
on the streets of Las Vegas, Nevada.
And then, approximately six months later,
Biggie Smalls is shot and killed in Los Angeles.
Notorious B. I. G. was gunned down
as he left the party here at the Petersen Automotive Museum
in the Miracle Mile.
[woman] This is devastating.
And just as painful as Tupac.
I love Tupac too as a person, these were people.
[Kading] There was always a strong belief
that the murder of Tupac Shakur
and the murder of Biggie Smalls were somehow related.
So when we began to reinvestigate Biggie’s murder,
we wanted to find any common denominator’ that we could back to Tupac’s murder.
Believing that, by exposing the truth of one,
we might be able to reveal the truth of the other.
Everybody knew. Everybody knew...
...the same day, that night it happened.
It was in the neighborhood, we know who did it.
As we reviewed the evidence from the previous investigation,
a common name kept coming up.
Uh, the name of a South Side Crip gang member by the name of Duane "Keefe D" Davis.
Keefe D being his gang moniker.
Keefe D had been associated with Bad Boy Records,
and had provided them some unofficial type of security
when they would come out to California or go on their concert tours.
Keefe D had been at the Petersen Auto Museum
the night that Biggie Smalls was killed.
And Keefe D had been in Las Vegas, Nevada
the night that Tupac Shakur was shot.
Just hours prior to his shooting,
Keefe D’s nephew, Orlando Anderson,
had been attacked by Tupac Shakur, Suge Knight,
and other members of the Death Row entourage.
The obstacle is always, when dealing with gang members,
that that culture just doesn’t typically cooperate with law enforcement.
Keefe D wasn’t interested in speaking with us.
So we were going to have to compel him to cooperate with us.
My name is Robert Ladd,
and I’m... I’m a former police officer for the city of Compton.
It was basically the home of the Crips and the Bloods.
[reporter] Los Angeles is where renowned street gangs,
the Bloods and the Crips call home.
They’re thought to be responsible for masterminding
drug operations across the entire country.
It was my job as a gang investigator
to know who the players were.
You know, who were the dope dealers, who were the shooters...
...who were the shot callers.
I knew Keefe D when he was just a young kid.
We used to chase him and arrest him.
And he went to prison and, I think, that’s where he met some major dope dealer.
And after he got out, he just took off.
And then I watched him become one of the biggest dope dealers in Compton.
We were nearly two years into the investigation,
before we’d really made any headway toward Keefe D.
We were very convinced that Keefe D knew something...
...at least about one of the murders.
So we developed a drug case against him...
...in order to put him into a corner
where it’s in his best interest to cooperate.
And that is when we approached him and gave him an ultimatum.
[camera shutter clicking]
[Keefe D speaking]
[Kading speaking]
He could cooperate with us
and tell us what he knew about the murder of Biggie Smalls
or face a 25-year prison sentence.
[Keefe D speaking]
[Kading] Keefe D and his attorney agree
to the terms of the agreement.
And we begin to discuss what he knows about the murder of Biggie Smalls.
The night that he attended the party at the Petersen Auto Museum...
...the time of the shooting, Keefe D claims that he was in the parking lot
and hears about Biggie being shot.
[gunshots firing]
So as we begin to unpack that,
he says "That one wasn’t us."
Now, when he says "us",
he’s clearly alluding to "us" being his gang. the South Side Crips,
Which then begs the question,
"Well, you weren’t responsible for that one,
which one were you responsible for?"
[Keefe D speaking]
[Kading speaking]
We thought that we were on the road to solving the murder of Biggie Smalls.
But in fact we came to realize it was the Tupac murder
that Keefe D was gonna be offering information on.
He said, "What I have to tell you is going to blow your mind."
[Keefe D speaking]
[Frederic] To really understand the story,
you have to go back and look at Biggie and Tupac, the early years.
These two rappers were friends.
They were very good friends.
Biggie and Tupac were genuine friends to each other.
They supported each other.
And they was super close, you know.
They respected each other.
My name is Lil’ Cease, I’m from the rap group Junior M. A. F. I. A.
And I’ve been knowing Biggie since I was five years old.
Biggie and Tupac were really contemporaries of each other,
and were coming up in the business at the same time.
I’m Cathy Scott.
I’m a journalist and author.
And I wrote The Killing of Tupac Shakur
and The Murder of Biggie Smalls.
Biggie Smalls was born Christopher Wallace in Brooklyn.
[Voletta Wallace] I was a single parent.
But I... I enjoyed him.
It was just a pleasure growing up with him,
but sometimes he drove me nuts.
[Cathy Scott] His mom was a teacher.
Voletta was very strict with Biggie.
She fought like crazy to give him an education.
She sent him to a private school.
[JV] What... What was your life like as a child?
I was just...
[JV] Were you shy or were you outgoing?
No, I’m still shy.
I’m a quiet dude.
-[JV] Are you? -Yeah, I kinda get the voice...
Say things I wouldn’t say, in my music.
[Scott] He wanted bigger and better things.
And they started selling dime bags of drugs on the corner,
and wanted to drop out of school
so that he could pursue this dream of becoming a rapper.
[JV] What would you see yourself doing if you didn’t get in the music business.
Probably, still be hustling. In the streets grinding.
Probably in your crib.
[JV chuckles awkwardly]
[Lil’ Crease] We thought we was goin’ be settling down
and be hustlers and sit on the corner.
We thought we was goin’ do that for the rest of our life.
But from the first time he started rapping,
we all just knew he was just dope.
[rapping] It’s me, the B. I. G.
♪ Competition ripper Since 13 ♪
♪ Used to steal clothes I was considered a thief ♪
♪ Until I startin’ hustlin’ On Fulton street ♪
I was just like, "Yo.
If somebody finds you, you’re gonna be a superstar."
I was furious when he told me that.
"You know, something...
...I’m not gonna finish school."
And we fought.
I had fire coming out of my ears.
And he said to me, "I’m gonna be a decent citizen.
I’m gonna earn a lot of money, and I’m gonna make you proud of me."
[Scott] He started cutting demos.
And then one of ’em ended up in the hands of Puffy Combs.
Okay, my name Tupac Shakur and I’m 17 years old.
[Scott] Tupac was born in Harlem.
And his mom was a member of the Black Panthers.
[Tupac Shakur] She was really involved in the movement,
you know, just black people bettering themselves and things like that.
[Frederic] This picture of Tupac as a young kid,
I mean he looks like any other kid in this picture.
He’s being playful, he’s smiling.
But this is a kid that really grew up in poverty.
Tupac’s father just wasn’t around.
Times were very hard for them.
Tupac’s family just up and moved from Harlem to Baltimore.
And I think the Baltimore School for the Arts saved him.
It’s where he said he was his happiest.
He took up poetry and ballet.
He learned Shakespeare.
I mean this is, really, his training ground
for the artist that he would become.
They left a lot of different cities,
and ended up in Oakland, California.
And that’s when his mom became a crack addict.
But he loved his mom, and he never blamed her for the way it was.
He was proud of her for who she was.
[Frederic] Tupac knew what it was like to live in the underbelly of America.
And he talked about it.
He rapped about it.
He wasn’t just rapping about guns, girls and gangs.
He talked about issues.
He really started to make people think.
That’s why young people really resonated with him.
He was a voice for his generation, not just for his race.
Why do they ask the young [bleep]
about guns and violence and drugs?
And [bleep] that.
You know, ask me about Shakespeare, all right?
[Voletta Wallace] He and Tupac were very, very close.
Tupac would call, "Look, I’m gonna be at this club,
come on up and open for me tonight."
And they were very close. Getting drunk together, and cruising together.
They were really buddy buddies.
It was actually Tupac who helped launch Biggie’s career.
He put him on stage with him.
He let him open for him.
Big appreciated what Tupac was doing for him,
giving him a lot of knowledge on the business.
’Cause, of course, he was out before Biggie.
[Frederic] They were genuine friends
that respected each other’s talent.
I don’t think anyone could’ve seen what was about to happen.
[reporter] Tupac Shakur was in court again today
facing charges of sexual assault
of a woman at a New York hotel.
[Scott] Tupac was in a lotta trouble in November of 1994.
He was on trial for sexual abuse, sodomy and weapons possession.
[jury member] The grand jury having charged all three defendants
with sodomy in the first degree,
attempted sodomy in the first degree,
and sexual abuse in the first degree.
A woman had accused him of setting her up...
...to be raped in his hotel room.
I’m guilty of a lotta things.
I’m guilty, probably, of being a male chauvinist pig.
I’m guilty of probably, um, not caring as much as I should.
I’m guilty of not spending enough time with people like I should.
But I’m not guilty of rape.
[Frederic] He had mounting legal bills.
He was facing a ridiculous amount of time behind bars...
...had he been convicted of everything he’d been charged with.
So Tupac is goin’ to Quad Studios that night...
...’cause he needed money.
And he was gonna jump on someone’s track...
...and make that fast cash.
[Scott] Tupac happened to be there on the same night Biggie Smalls and his crew
were in there recording as well.
We was on the terrace.
And I seen Tupac, and a few others, walking down the block.
And I called out, I called his name.
And he was like, "Cease, what’s up?
What’s up my man?
What... Where you all at?"
And I told Big. I said, "Yo, Big, Pac’s downstairs."
He was like, "Oh, go get him. Tell him to come upstairs."
We had no idea that he was comin’ to that studio.
Tupac and a few of his friends show up at Quad Studios.
But unbeknownst to him, there’s some guys that follow him in from the street.
And before he knows it, the guys pull out their guns...
...and start taking all of his jewelry.
I went downstairs and I got two guns pointed at me.
I’m like, "Huh?"
They told me to get back in the elevator, I got back in the elevator.
And I went back upstairs and I told Big that Pac is getting robbed downstairs.
And Big thought I was lying.
He’s like, "Yo, stop playing."
And I’m like "Nah, Big, I’m serious.
Pac is downstairs getting robbed right now."
[reporter] Tupac fought back and was shot multiple times.
The perpetrators stole $40,000 worth of his jewelry,
including gold chains and a diamond ring.
Christopher came home and it was on the news.
He was so upset.
Um, he went to the hospital. They wouldn’t let him see Tupac.
And he... he was hurt.
Because he and Tupac were very, very close.
For whatever reason, Tupac thought that Biggie set him up.
Even though it wasn’t true.
Biggie had nothing to do with the robbery at all.
He felt like we may have known the people that was involved in it...
...which we didn’t.
I just think it was a lotta things goin’ on with him.
I think it was just a lotta that pressure.
And then you also fightin’ a rape case too?
I just figure he was just goin’ through a lot.
[exclaims]
He was stressed out and he just ran with that.
And that’s what he believed and nobody could change his mind.
Tupac was cleared of the rape and weapons’ charges.
But he was convicted of sexual abuse.
He goes to jail, and then Tupac started dissing Biggie.
And that was the genesis and the beginning
of the East Coast-West Coast rap war.
He was sent to Clinton Correctional Center,
which is a hardcore prison for some really heavy-duty criminals.
Tupac was appealing the conviction, but he couldn’t make the bail.
It was, uh, $1 million something
and he did not have that kinda cash.
And then along came Suge Knight.
Suge was doing well with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg,
but Tupac was even bigger,
and he saw his potential, and he wanted to top Bad Boy.
So in 1995, the Source Awards were held in New York City,
so you’re on the home turf of Bad Boy Records.
The audience is packed with all of these East Coast artists,
including Sean "Puffy" Combs, and Notorious B. I. G.
And then there was this small contingent from the West Coast and Death Row Records.
First of all, I’d like to thank God,
second of all I’d like to thank my whole, entire Death Row family.
I was at the Source Awards in ’95, and, uh, I was pissed.
They came from left field, like, outta nowhere.
Up walks Suge to that stage,
and throws the biggest verbal punch that ever could be thrown at Sean "Puffy" Combs.
[Suge] Any of you all that’s out there wanna be a artist, and wanna stay a star,
Don’t want... Don’t have to worry about the day
the producer’s tryin’ to be all in the videos,
all on the records,
[crowd clamoring] dancin’, come to Death Row!
[crowd clamoring]
[Frederic] Puffy was sitting there stunned.
It was the biggest insult ever.
The Death Row crowd was, like, cheering Suge on.
But let me tell you, everything changed that night. Everything.
[Cease] None of us knew what that was for,
like, you know, where did that come from?
See that’s what most people don’t know. Suge and I had just got off the plane,
and that was the day we had just came from visiting Tupac in prison.
That was the day that Tupac had just committed to Death Row Records.
And that was Suge’s way of announcing to Puffy that "I’m ridin’ with Puff now."
[Scott] In exchange for Tupac doing a three record deal for Death Row Records,
Suge Knight paid his $1.4 million bail, and got him out of prison.
So Suge Knight picked him up at the jail in a white limousine,
and took him on a private jet, and flew him to California so he could start working.
The man was a workaholic, and he was doin’ a lotta writing.
[Scott] He was in the studio almost every day
knockin’ off the records, and they were selling like wildfire.
And that’s when his career really exploded.
Less than a year after taking that flight, Tupac Shakur was dead.
If you really wanna understand this case,
the root of everything that follows starts here.
Tupac signing to Death Row Records.
Tupac was already ghetto,
but I think it elevated when he came and started dealin’ with these type of Bloods,
these type of gang members.
Tupac became one of us in Death Row.
He wasn’t a fighter, he wasn’t a thug.
Aren’t they wonderin’ why death rates are goin’ up, and suicide is goin’ up?
Don’t they understand that more people are...
I mean... more kids are bein’ handed crack than they’re bein’ handed diplomas?
He was all about people bettering themselves,
and yet, Suge completely pulled him in another direction.
[McDonald] Suge and I grew up in Compton.
I knew him since 12, 14 years old.
But he wasn’t a gang member when I was a gang member.
Suge had his mother and father that were kinda like, strict, and Suge went to college.
But when I got outta prison in 1988, Suge came and knocked on the door.
And I wound up bein’ the muscle man, bein’ that go-to guy.
If anybody would have gotten in the way, it was my job to get ’em outta the way.
Every guy that was picked and chosen to be at Death Row had a penitentiary record.
He had a squad of elite Bloods, these were, like,
like, the Navy SEAL team of Bloods that he had.
Suge Knight took care a those guys, he employed them, and he gave them jobs,
and when he gave them jobs, they’re employed thugs.
You know, these guys can kick your ass and have a reason,
[stammering] and a license to say, "We kicked your ass because we’re security."
When people saw Suge, they saw us,
and when they saw us, they spreaded like the sea, they got outta his way.
The first time I met Tupac, he was cool.
Once he start hangin’ with the homies,
total different dude.
He went from a cool cat, to a... to a monster.
His whole character changed.
He became what Suge Knight wanted him to become.
That lifestyle became the death of Tupac Shakur.
The rivalry between Death Row Records and Suge Knight,
and Bad Boy Records, and Sean "Puffy" Combs,
really got amped up through their music.
The music between Notorious B. I. G. and Tupac Shakur.
♪ Who shot ya ♪
Tupac interpreted that song as being about him,
and the time he was shot at Quad Studios in New York City,
but the song was actually recorded before Pac was shot.
We didn’t think he would think that the record is about him.
Puff was just puttin’ out records.
We didn’t think that Tupac would look at the record that way or take it that way.
[Frederic] Pac was disrespected, and boy, did Tupac respond.
"Hit ’Em Up" was the biggest diss record in the history of music,
not just rap, but in music.
[Cease] When Biggie heard Tupac, when he heard "Hit ’Em Up", he was upset.
He looked at Tupac as a friend, he looked at him as a brother.
So yeah, hearin’ Tupac talk about him like that on that song,
he was definitely upset about it.
[Scott] Who does that kinda record saying, "I slept with your wife?"
He’s threatening to hurt people, and kill people,
that was the influence of Suge Knight.
They wanted to try to reach out to Pac, he... he wanted to fix it.
Once Tupac signed with Death Row, no, nothin’ got better from there.
The war of words, the banging on wax was one thing,
but then the bullets started flying for real.
[Kading] Approximately, a month after the Source Awards,
where Suge Knight had publicly disrespected Puffy Combs and Bad Boy,
there’s a confrontation at a nightclub.
Where Suge Knight’s close friend and bodyguard, named Jake Robles is shot and killed
allegedly by one of Puffy Combs’ bodyguards, a guy named Anthony Jones.
[McDonald] Before Big Jake was killed,
it was just a verbal exchange with Puffy and Suge.
They was just talkin’ back and forth at each other.
Big Jake was the... was the start of a serious situation.
[Kading] Suge Knight held Puffy Combs personally responsible
for what had taken place regarding Jake’s murder.
So this is one of the reasons that Puffy Combs then starts to align himself
with Keefe D and members of the South Side Crips,
who could provide that first barrier of defense
against any future conflicts with Suge Knight.
Keefe D says he begins to have conversations with Puffy Combs
about the conflict that he’s having with Suge Knight.
[Kading] Puffy says, "I’ll give anything for those guy’s heads."
Well, by "Guys", he clearly is referring to Suge Knight, but also Tupac Shakur.
[Kading] That agreement according to Keefe D,
was that if they take care of those guys,
that he would a... receive a million dollars from Puffy Combs.
I do not believe that it... it was a true intent of Puffy Combs
to go out and see these guys contractually murdered.
I think it was a desperate man speaking exaggerated language.
However, Keefe D on the receiving end of that,
this is his world, you know, none of this is foreign to him.
Going out and retaliating is somethin’ that he’d grown up with,
and if there’s money at stake, or money involved, of course, he’s gonna further that.
Tupac had travelled to Las Vegas with Suge Knight to watch the Mike Tyson fight
which was taking place at the MGM Grand Casino.
Immediately after the fight, Suge Knight, Tupac Shakur,
other members of the Death Row entourage are making their way through the casino lobby area,
and one of those members
is a guy named Travon Lane, who is a Mob Piru Gang member.
He spots an individual named Orlando Anderson.
Orlando Anderson is the nephew of Keefe D.
Just months prior to that,
Orlando Anderson and other members of his gang, the South Side Crips,
had run into Travon Lane and members of the Mob Piru
at the Lakewood Mall in Southern California.
This resulted in a altercation,
in which there was an attempt to grab Travon Lane’s Death Row medallion from him.
[Ladd] At the MGM, Travon sees Orlando Anderson
you know, so gang life.
The disrespect thing, they gotta do somethin’ about it.
Tupac takes it upon himself to rush over, and sucker punch Orlando Anderson.
Orlando is on the floor, the other members of the entourage,
including Suge Knight begin to stomp and kick Orlando Anderson
until the fight is essentially broken up.
Suge Knight, Tupac Shakur begin to quickly exit the area.
Tupac Shakur, unbeknownst to him, has just attacked a very dangerous individual.
I don’t think he had any idea what he set in motion.
[McDonald] We born and raised gang banger, we know the rules.
That... that dude didn’t know our rules,
and Suge shoulda grabbed him and told him, "No, that ain’t your fight."
That’s what the homies here for.
It was just unfortunate that Tupac picked the wrong guy to [bleep] with.
You picked the wrong mother [bleep] to jump on!
You... you touched a real one, you touched a real Crip.
Somethin’s gonna happen, you gotta pay a price for that,
and the price was gonna be paid that night.
[Ladd] He just got beat down by Suge, and Tupac, and Travon, the entourage,
you think he was gonna let that go?
Not in gang life, not these guys.
[Kading] Orlando Anderson’s uncle, Keefe D had been at the MGM Casino,
and becomes aware of the fact that his nephew has just been attacked,
and they immediately begin to plan their retaliation.
Keefe D and Orlando Anderson, along with two other South Side Crips
get into a white Cadillac,
and begin to head over to Suge Knight’s nightclub, Club 662.
[Kading] And according to Keefe D, this now presented the perfect opportunity
for him to retaliate for the beat down that just took place against his nephew.
To also further the agreement, as he understood it,
between him and Puffy Combs to eliminate Suge Knight and Tupac Shakur.
They lie in wait, hoping to see Suge Knight and Tupac Shakur arrive.
They get a little bit anxious because time is starting to pass,
people are starting to see them.
[Kading] And so they abandon the plan.
As fate would have it, they see a caravan a cars coming.
[tires screeching]
[Kading] Had it not been for these fans screaming out Tupac’s name,
there’s a strong likelihood that Keefe D
and the other guys in the white Cadillac would have simply passed by.
Not realizing that Tupac Shakur was just across the street.
And the Cadillac begins to pull alongside the vehicles
containing the Death Row entourage,
who have come to a stop at an intersection.
As they creep forward, Orlando Anderson leans out the window with a firearm,
and as they pull alongside the BMW, occupied by Suge and Tupac,
he begins to fire into the vehicle, ultimately striking Tupac several times.
[police radio] Shots fired! I repeat, shots fired!
[McDonald] Everybody knew, everybody knew. The same day, that night it happened.
It was in the neighborhood. We know who did it.
[reporter] The Reverend Jesse Jackson comforting the mother of rapper Tupac Shakur.
A distraught MC Hammer rushing to his good friend’s bedside.
The worried faces of friends, family and fans
keeping around the clock vigil at a Las Vegas hospital,
where Tupac Shakur is still fighting for his life.
I remember this like it was yesterday.
It was very emotional, I mean, people were crying.
Everybody was kinda just hoping that he survived.
Friends, family and fans are praying God gives him another chance.
[reporter 2] After being shot at close range, Tupac is in a critical condition.
[reporter 3] Rap artist, Tupac Shakur,
has had his right lung removed by doctors in Las Vegas.
[Scott] I was waiting for the doctor to come out and talk to the media,
and one of his backup singers came out, and that’s when I knew he was gone.
I mean, he just collapsed on his knees and sat down
on the curb, and just bawled like a baby.
It was a tough day. It was a very tough day.
Sad day, very sad day.
[fan sobbing] My love for Tupac, and my people
[stammering] I mean, it... A loss for words.
[reporter 4] Tupac Shakur died today in Las Vegas.
Pac was one of our representatives
like Malcolm, like Martin, you know what I’m sayin’?
And now Tupac gone, that was our voice!
[Kading] Immediately after the shooting of Tupac,
the information began to circulate.
That it had been the South Side Crips that were responsible for shooting him.
Orlando Anderson was back in the ’hood bragging that he shot Pac
because he thought he’d just shot him, he didn’t realize he killed him.
When Tupac died, Orlando Anderson stopped bragging.
[reporter 5] A 22-year old gang member
has been arrested by officers in Compton, California.
[reporter 6] Orlando Anderson is now in custody,
and suspected of nearly a dozen shootings.
At the time, we had a warrant for Orlando Anderson
for a unrelated murder to Tupac.
So we were able to arrest him, and we had Vegas P. D. waitin’ to interview him.
To be honest, they didn’t really know much about gang investigations.
Also, Las Vegas, they were tryin’ to change their image at the time.
They were becomin’ a family oriented place, and I don’t think they wanted,
"Hey, there’s gang warfare goin’ on in the streets of Las Vegas."
I think they just want it to go away.
[reporter 7] Vegas P. D. will interview 22-year-old Anderson,
but cannot confirm if he is a suspect.
[Scott] I was told that a trial like that would be bad publicity.
That was from a very high level within the police department.
[Frederic] Had Tupac been a white recording artist, this case would have been solved.
Quickly.
’Cause Vegas police would have wanted to seem like they were on it.
"Oh, no. We’re not gonna let anything like that happen in our town."
But it was a black man, who was also a rapper.
They weren’t tryin’ to solve this case.
They didn’t care.
Orlando Anderson became the person that everyone wanted to talk to.
So what I was determined to do was to ask him the question that everyone wanted to know.
Let me just ask you point blank, did you shoot Tupac Shakur?
I didn’t kill, uh, Tupac Shakur, you know, I didn’t do it.
I wish everybody would stop accusin’ me of doin’ it.
[Frederic] That’s good, that’s really good.
thank you so much, I really appreciate that.
I didn’t believe him.
[Kading] The Las Vegas Police Department
didn’t have the kind of evidence or information
you would need in order to charge Orlando Anderson.
They don’t have anybody coming forward and cooperating,
and this is the difficulty in gang cases.
This unwritten rule that you don’t cooperate with law enforcement,
and that you handle things on the street.
If you knew who killed Tupac, would you tell the police?
Absolutely not.
By the time that Keefe D confessed to his role in the murder,
and identified his nephew, Orlando Anderson,
as the shooter of Tupac Shakur, which is late 2008,
nearly ten years had gone by.
By that time, Orlando Anderson, himself, was already dead.
Shot and killed in Compton as a result of a drug dispute.
In the process of investigating Biggie’s murder,
we had inadvertently solved Tupac’s case.
But as a result of the proffer agreement that we had with Keefe D,
we could not charge him at that time with conspiracy to commit murder.
I believe that we coulda solved it, and it’s just... it’s a tragedy that we didn’t
have a chance to get this thing resolved for the family, and everybody else,
so and to this day, it still haunts me.
[McDonald] Tupac was killed on our watch.
Well, how’d that make us look?
You know, that’s our reputation is on the line, who we are.
What kinda gang bangers are we if we don’t retaliate?
You can’t let it go unchallenged.
Somebody had to be killed because Tupac was killed.