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Who Killed Tupac?
Posted: 04/14/2008 by: Brendan Jeffers
"The streets' still talkin'..." So go the lyrics over the introduction to yet another documentary on music's fallen icon, Tupac Shakur. Those words couldn't ring more true. As each day passes, something new on Tupac surfaces, whether it be yet another posthumous album, or a course at a university. The latest news is what turned out to be an erroneous report from the LA Times that claimed that Diddy and the late Notorious B.I.G. knew about Tupac being set-up in 1994 at a New York studio, where he was shot. Perhaps the most talked about issue surrounding Tupac is his death and all the conspiracies and speculation that surround it. Did he really die? Did he fake his death? Was the government behind it? Was it a result of the East/West rap wars? Everyone threw their two cents in, and in the end it got us no where. Over a decade later, as unimaginable as it seems, we still don't know who killed Tupac. It seems ridiculous that a celebrity was shot out in public, in one of America's busiest cities, on a night when the city was particularly buzzing with people, due to a Tyson fight, and the case remains unsolved, and probably will remain that way. That probability is tragic.
Two individuals aim to nix that tragic probability releasing the aforementioned documentary that sheds light onto the case from an angle never seen before. Their angle is as close to Tupac, on that fateful night in Las Vegas, as one could possibly be. Without being Suge Knight, that is. Filmmaker RJ Bond and Tupac's former bodyguard, Frank Alexander have teamed up and pieced together a very comprehensive, and not surprisingly, controversial documentary called Tupac Assassination: Conspiracy or Revenge.
Brendan Jeffers: It's been well over a decade since Tupac's death. Why wait so long to speculate on who killed him?
Frank Alexander: I just got to the point where I started looking at things differently and realized that there was a little bit more behind the incidences that transpired, then what really meets the eye. All those bullets went through that car, which was about fifteen rounds, and only two hit Tupac and not one hit Suge. Originally, I thought Suge would've had to be a fool to be sitting beside Tupac and have him set-up to be killed. After thinking about that, years later, it depends on who he trusted. Who was going to be the trigger man? How close the vehicle was from the shooter to the BMW? And when the arm reached out, how many rounds actually hit Tupac, and how many rounds hit the car before he even got to Tupac? He fired off a whole lot of rounds before he got to Tupac, and that was at the back of the car... (At that distance) there's absolutely no way possible in the world that he could not hit Tupac. He would've just hit Tupac and that would've been that... So just looking at how that could have possibly happened, and how he could have trusted who the shooter was going to be. My whole theory of Suge just sitting there and being innocent just changed.
So what exactly is this conspiracy theory? Following Occam's Razor - a 14th century principle that, in a nutshell, states the simplest solution is most likely the correct one - Bond and Alexander try to piece together a conspiracy that they feel makes absolute sense. But, let's cut to the chase and say that the documentary implicates two key figures behind the conspiracy that is outlined: To no surprise, one of them is Death Row Records head Marion "Suge" Knight, and the other is Reggie Wright Jr. Who? Until this documentary few knew of Reggie Wright, who largely worked behind the scenes as head of security and also acting general manager of Death Row Records. The documentary refers to Mr. Wright as "The Man behind the Curtain", as the conspiracy has him as the mastermind, if you will, but with Suge as the man with the motive. It was believed that Tupac was intending to leave Death Row, with all his masters, to start his own label, Makaveli Records. Bond and Alexander's suspicions were raised due to a number of arguments that occurred between Tupac and Suge Knight, days and weeks before the shooting in Las Vegas. Also, Suge Knight and Death Row Records apparently owed many of their artists, including Tupac, a lot of money for their recordings.
The conspiracy theory unfolds as a well thought-out assassination. First, communications, and security around the target were disabled. Upon arriving in Las Vegas, Death Row Record's security team, including Frank Alexander, were called to a bizarre meeting by Reggie Wright, where they were told to not carry guns, without reason. Frank Alexander, who was assigned to Tupac, agrees. Michael Moore, also covering Tupac and his entourage, refuses. Later that night, Michael Moore was pulled from covering Tupac and ordered to do security at Club 662, by Reggie Wright. Frank was left to cover Tupac and company with no gun and no two-way radio.
The next step in the plan was to "shift the blame" or have someone else appear to have motive for the shooting. Following the Tyson - Seldon boxing match, Tupac and company got in a fight with Compton, California resident, Orlando Anderson, at the MGM. Orlando Anderson months previous, was in a fight with a man named Travon who was among the men with Tupac and Suge Knight at the fight. Orlando Anderson, who appeared to have no reason to be in Vegas and had no ticket to the fight, had become a patsy. The shooting of Tupac, once it took place, appears to be in retaliation for Anderson being beat up by Tupac and company. Travon was the first to accuse Orlando Anderson of shooting Tupac.
The final step was to get the target into an opportune location for the shooting. Tupac and company head to Club 662 in a number of cars. Tupac and Suge drove on their own, followed by Frank Alexander and others in another car. Once off the main strip, and at a stop light, a white Cadillac pulled up and fired at the car with Tupac and Suge. Their intended target was hit.
There is so much more to the conspiracy theory. There appears to be a set-up of cars so the vehicle Tupac was in had no place to go during the shooting. Michael Moore says while at Club 662, he heard over Reggie Wright's two-way, "Got him." It's suspected to be the confirmation of the shooting. Also, the investigation apparently seemed to be corrupt from the start. The police were very slow to search for the shooter's vehicle. Several key individuals close to Tupac, including Michael Moore were never questioned. Why? Reggie Wright, a former Compton police officer, allegedly had close ties to the Las Vegas Police Department, the Compton Police Department and the Los Angeles Police Department. Reggie Wright's father was even involved in the investigation.
B: The documentary reveals in much more detail what many already knew, and that is the investigation was very... messy, for lack of a better word at the moment. Why do you think the police were lackadaisical when it came to finding the person or people behind Tupac's murder?
F: I think Las Vegas, after eleven years, they've lost so much witness credibility, that they didn't go into the investigation to really solve it from the beginning. Had they wanted to solve it, they would have investigated two, three months back. People like (Tupac and Death Row's bodyguards) Michael Moore, Al Giddens and Kenneth Archer. Not one of them were interviewed. It was another black man who got killed in Las Vegas. It didn't matter who he was, but because it was Tupac, they did not want the media attention coming to Las Vegas interrupting the tourism.
RJ Bond: A murder has to have two elements: Motive and opportunity. And if the police aren't going to interview anyone that our documentary clearly suggests had motive and clearly had opportunity, then what use is the investigation if you can't establish a motive? The guy tells Death Row he wants to leave and three days later he's dead. That's powerful. And the police don't want to consider that. There's also no one motivating the police to do anything. Oscar Goodman, who was the mayor of Las Vegas, was one of Suge Knight's attorneys.
Their conspiracy theory makes sense from beginning to end. However, what happened to Occam's Razor; the simplest solution appears to be the right one? The conspiracy theory that the documentary reveals, reads like a complicated plot with a laundry list of people involved in the act. Reggie Wright Jr., Reggie Wright Sr., Suge, Orlando, Travon and various police officers in a number of districts. All were involved, and all managed to keep quiet? And is this really the simplest answer to the unsolved riddle to who killed Tupac? In addition, one can't help but notice that the documentary is highly intriguing. Could all that was said and revealed be true, or has the truth been stretched in the name of entertainment?
B: Since the release of your documentary, there have been some that have dismissed your claims, saying that your film is full of contradictions and statements that don't make sense. What would you say to doubters?
RJ: The problem with the rebuttals are they've accused Frank of saying one thing in his book and then contradicting himself later on. For example in his book, Frank said, "I'm sure Suge had nothing to do with this." Well that was eight years ago. Of course people change when they find out more information. Nobody is contradicting themselves, it's just as you learn new things, you change your mind. It doesn't make what you say now less credible.
B: Don't you feel there are too many people involved in the conspiracy you present? It's very plausible, but it also reads like a great movie plot.
F: Of course when you take all the elements together you have the ingredients to make a movie. My book has the ingredients to make a movie. Going through life, a lot of people go, "Oh, I could make a movie out of my life." So yeah, the elements are going to be there.
RJ: The reality of the situation is, in our theory, there are only a handful of players involved. There's Suge, Reggie, Travon, Orlando Anderson, and that's it. Everybody else was just taking orders. Consider this for a moment. They throw a beating down in public on Orlando Anderson. That would constitute felony battery. And they do this beating, as you and the whole world have seen, on security cameras at the MGM that night. Now if you throw a felony beating down that was caught on tape and you run off leaving the victim there at the scene of the crime, the last place you would go is to your home where the police are bound to look for you first. Yet, that's where Suge goes immediately after. Now, if Suge has enough confidence to go to his (Vegas) home, the first place the police would go look to arrest him, it would be because of one of two reasons.
1) He knew Orlando Anderson wasn't going to press charges, or
2) He knew that even if Orlando did press charges, that there's no way the police would come arrest him, because he's got them wired.
In an assassination, there's only going to be a handful of people that have the whole picture in their mind. Everybody else just gets orders. They get told you gotta be here or do this at a certain time...So you really only have a few people that are involved. Suge, Reggie, Orlando Anderson, Travon, because he's the one who had to spread the message and build a cover story, and that's it. That's not really a cast of thousands, is it?
B: Put that way, no. I guess you can say you have the main cast members and--
RJ: And then you have the extras.
F: There's your element of film right there. (laughs)
B: Do you two fear at all for your lives after revealing such damaging information about particular individuals.
F: No. Fear is fate. If something, after eleven years, would just suddenly happen to me other than dying of natural causes, it would be a dead giveaway who was behind it. It would be a retaliation of the information we decided to put out. For them to do anything after the book and after this doc, the finger would clearly point at them.
B: Do you think we will ever definitely, without a doubt know who killed Tupac?
F: Eventually. Maybe not in our time or we may not ever get to see it, but I do believe that God holds the key to that answer. No murder is a perfect murder when it comes to God.
RJ: I believe. I think eventually it will be, but in the meantime, it's the job of Frank and it's the job of me, and it's the job of anybody who really gives a damn about Tupac. Whether you like what the people say in our documentary or not, we're trying to memorialize and capture everything this person knows about what happened, so that later on if there's someone who can put all the pieces together and cares enough to make it stick, that they'll have that information. It'd be a very sad thing if these witnesses never talk to the police, went away off into the sunset, and never were heard from again, because that's it. They're dead leads. That's a shame.
B: So you two have taken it upon yourself to do your own investigation.
RJ: You hear a lot fans talking about what we said that was right, and what we said that was wrong, but I ain't seen none of them pick up a camera yet. If we don't, who will?
Mr. Bond and Mr. Alexander have definitely done their homework on the case, but it seems the documentary relies very much on speculation, unconfirmed leads, and hearsay. However, although those accused of being involved in the shooting have vehemently denied being involved, none of the accused conspirators have taken legal action in any manner against the makers of Tupac Assassination. Frank and RJ have once again created a buzz around the mystery surrounding Tupac's death. In the end, they might have fallen short of a definitive conclusion, but they've brought a lot of pertinent details to light. So maybe, just maybe they're onto something.
