We were at Club 662 waiting for Pac to show up when, after a couple of hours, Nate Dogg came through the crowd, came straight up to us, and said, “Pac and Suge have been shot.”
RYAN D ROLLINS I was living in Suisun City when somebody told me. I was like, This nigga keep getting shot!
ERIC FARBER I still remember where I was the night he got shot. It was a really strange thing, because I hadn’t listened to a lot. I knew it, of course, and he was such a juggernaut. And I think that my own personal politics sort of fell into paying attention to this stuff, even if I wasn’t sort of a fan at the time. I went to a screenwriter’s house to watch the fight. I remember thinking of him as the Black James Dean.
CATHY SCOTT I started on the political beat. I was a city hall reporter, and another reporter and I switched and I worked the police beat, as we called it there. I’d gotten a lot of sources just because you have to with a department that hides the ball. I’ve been to more homicide cases than I’d care to count. I knew the sergeant in homicide. You’re stuck there in hurry-up-and-wait kind of moments because the coroner doesn’t come right away—they don’t have to because the body’s there—and you get to know the cops.
I got a call in the middle of the night, at about two a.m., from one of my sources at homicide that said, “Get down to the Las Vegas Strip. Two-pack Shack-er”—that’s how he pronounced it—“has been shot.” I got dressed and I headed down to the Strip, and some crime-scene people were still there; all the rest of the people were mostly gone, but there were still some and it was still cordoned off.
GREG KADING A couple of Metro[politan Police Department] guys that were in a parking lot adjacent to where the intersection is, they hear shots fire out. So they go, and they see cars peeling out. They don’t know who’s fucking shooting whom. They see Suge make this abrupt U-turn and pull away, and so if you’re seeing that type of driving, you’re like, Fuck, maybe those are the shooters. You don’t know. Nobody witnessed it from law enforcement. You don’t know what your scene is. You don’t know if anyone had been shot. You don’t have a fucking clue. All you know is there’s gunfire and cars are peeling out. Let’s go after that one. There’s no victim on the ground. No people screaming, “Hey, my friend’s been shot.”
CATHY SCOTT Two bike cops who patrolled downtown were up in the parking garage on some call and the shooting takes place. The garage is about five or six stories high and each side is wide open. So they take their bikes and haul them down. They know that it was a shooting because they heard it.
They see all the cars and everything else. They saw Suge turn around. Instead of calling for backup—because they did carry those little radios with the thing on their shoulders—and instead of leaving one of the cops at the scene, they both took off, chasing Suge Knight down the Strip as he’s trying to get through traffic.
GOBI RAHIMI My gut was telling me that Suge did it.
WENDY DAY I was very nervous because I saw that he wasn’t wearing the pendant, and the one thing that I knew about Suge was Suge really demanded loyalty. That was really important to him, to the point where, when Pac was killed, I genuinely thought Suge Knight had him killed. I remember calling some guys that I knew that were gangbangers that were rappers as well, and asking if that was possible. Everybody came back saying no. Think about that: Why would you have somebody killed and you’re sitting next to them? I was just convinced that it was the smartest plan for a hit.
CATHY SCOTT He wasn’t running away from the cops. He didn’t know where the shooter was and he’s trying to get help for Tupac. Everybody’s going, “Well, why didn’t he go straight to the hospital?” I don’t know. He lived there. Down from the Strip, he could have been headed for Spring Mountain hospital. It was farther away than the one they ended up at—University Medical Center. But can you imagine the panic? Tupac isn’t doing well. He’s trying to get away from this shooter and get Tupac help. Plus he was shot. He had shrapnel in the base of his skull.
Then the cops took all the guys in the entourage and they put everybody facedown, including Suge. Put them facedown on the ground. And then they couldn’t figure out why they wouldn’t cooperate. Meanwhile, nobody got out to the scene of the crime for twenty minutes.
How many shell cases did people run over? How much evidence was lost? How many witnesses unaccounted for? That was a crime scene. That should have been cordoned off immediately. They didn’t grab the tape from the MGM hotel right away to figure out what Tupac had been doing. They would have seen Orlando.
GREG KADING The fight at MGM Grand came about because of a preexisting incident between a gang member named Orlando Anderson, who was a member of the South Side Crips, and a guy named Trevon Lane, who was a member of Suge Knight’s entourage. [Lane] had his necklace stolen [by Anderson] at the Lakewood mall [near Compton]. And so there was already conflict between these gangs. So when Trevon saw Orlando kind of hanging out loitering [after the fight], Trevon did what any person would do: he pointed it out to the guy who he’s with and goes, “Hey, there’s that motherfucker that robbed my chain.” And Tupac took it upon himself to kind of step up and retaliate for that.
ALEX ROBERTS Pac didn’t need to go after Orlando Anderson. Just let him keep the fucking chain. But there were other people around, and Suge was in sight. If they hadn’t been around, Pac wouldn’t have gone after him.
WENDY DAY A lot of his problems that he had in his life were due to him retaliating for other people.
CATHY SCOTT The distance from the south end of the Strip to the north end, which ends in downtown Las Vegas, is only four miles. And so the [alleged] shooters went maybe two miles and then hung a right on Flamingo. Orlando was pissed. Gangbangers don’t forget, they retaliate. They’re looking for him; they all know where he’s going.
So they’re just driving around, driving up and down Flamingo. They went down to Club 662 and waited for him. And there was a line around the block for people to get in. Can you imagine if they had come up? That would have been a bunch of people that would have been injured. That’s when they were going to get him. Orlando didn’t have a ticket. They came across them [on the road] and instead of having to do it at Club 662 they decided to do it there.
GREG KADING They came to Club 662 looking for them before they caught up with them later. There was an eyewitness, a guy named Mob James who was a member of Suge’s entourage, and he was working security at the parking lot at the 662, and he saw the Cadillac come in and he knew who these guys were, and he knew that there had been a fight and he knew of the prior history. So of course Mob James sees these guys and the Cadillac that he knows. There are also armed officers in the parking lot, so it’s not the best place if you’re going to try to do a retaliation shooting.
CATHY SCOTT I got word, I think it was a hotel person who said, “Hey, you know, don’t you, that Metro cops were moonlighting at Club 662?” They wear uniforms and they do conventions and stuff. But here they were at Club 662 for Suge Knight. Suge or his attorney goes to the Metro Police Department—they don’t call Vegas the Little Mississippi of the West for nothing; they’re not put off by wanting to hire some cops—and say, “We’d like them to be all Black.”
It was eight cops and nothing happened to those guys. Well, what did they see? They were all at Club 662. Metro cops were on duty working for Suge Knight. They were on radios. What did they hear? But nobody was with them at Suge’s house or to drive with them.
Some of the people in the entourage didn’t have concealed carry permits for their guns. In Las Vegas you have a concealed weapon permit to carry a concealed weapon. And they were told, and they knew that. Suge lived there. David KennerII pulled them together and said, “None of you guys can carry.” Basically, he’s warning them. [Tupac’s bodyguard] Frank Alexander was in Kidada’s car. His car was in the MGM and his gun was in his glove box. So he didn’t have his gun with him. [Death Row head of security] Reggie Wright had security that only worked for Suge. But they weren’t a real security company
. They weren’t trained.
If you look at the Strip, the MGM was sort of between Suge’s house and Club 662, so of course they wanted to make a dramatic entrance. They’re out and they’ve got the entourage and the music’s playing like crazy. So they go up the Strip to head to Club 662. They go to his house first—eat, change clothes each day—and Tupac went to the Luxor Hotel, and you can see the video of him at the valet. He’s waiting for Suge to pick him up and he’s hanging out with some women—of course. He tells his girlfriend, Quincy Jones’s daughter, to stay in the hotel. Poor thing; she didn’t go to the fight and then there’s an after-party and he doesn’t want her to go to that, either. She couldn’t go to that party because he wanted to party. He was a misogynist, but she could have been killed had she been in the car. She no doubt would have been shot, because it was like a Bonnie-and-Clyde kind of thing—rat-tat-tat-tat, shoot up the side of the car.
Frank, who kept changing his story to make it better, told me that all he saw was a brown arm come out of the Cadillac from the back driver’s-side seat, and then smoke, and because of all the smoke, and the firing back in the ensuing gun battle, he couldn’t see a thing.
GOBI RAHIMI We called his business manager, Yaasmyn Fula, and found out that he was at University Hospital and she told us to go there and wait there until she or someone from his side showed up. When we got there Kidada and his cousin Jamala were there, and me and Tracy were the only two people from Pac’s camp. We didn’t trust Death Row, we didn’t trust Suge, so we didn’t know who to trust. It was scary. I came up scrapping, but I’d never, never been a gun dude. So I was scared shitless. But I also knew that I was the only guy there from Pac’s camp that first night until the Outlawz showed up at five or six in the morning.
CATHY SCOTT I just kind of hit the ground running since I got the case so early. They put another reporter on the peripheral stories, because we were a big newspaper in Las Vegas, but by comparison to other cities we were small. We were an afternoon paper, which made the ability to do things and beat them earlier, or sometimes be late. I just delved in. We were ahead of this story almost every day.
It was all a blur at the time. I wasn’t getting any sleep. It happened Saturday night. They called a news conference Sunday. I think they sent the news release out and I was told by the desk that there’s a press conference at noon, or ten a.m., or whatever. It was the funniest thing to see sports channels, like ESPN, there. Homicide was just a little building that they rented. So it wasn’t quite headquarters. It was in my neighborhood about a mile from my house. It was with business offices and it was unmarked.
Sergeant Kevin Manning looked like a deer caught in headlights. Never before had he seen so many reporters in his entire career. I’m sure he took questions. I’m sure they fired them off. There was quite a circle around him. He literally just had no expression on his face. I honestly think the department thought it would go away. Because, you know, this is a Black guy; this would be a Black trial.
GREG KADING Las Vegas PD knew that Orlando Anderson was the primary suspect in their murder. They knew that he had gotten into a fight with Tupac and knew that he had been involved in other violent crimes and knew that other members of the South Side Crips were in Vegas. These weren’t incompetent investigators that were trying not to solve the crime.
CATHY SCOTT Orlando Anderson went home on Saturday. In the first twenty-four hours, Compton PD got the Cadillac, which went back to this auto repair shop. So they did bodywork on it and got rid of bullet holes, because Tupac’s entourage shot back. CPD is saying Orlando Anderson is bragging to all of South Central that he shot Tupac. They shared that intelligence and Las Vegas cops did not do a thing.
GREG KADING When Tim BrennanIII says, “Hey, the guy in the photograph that Tupac attacked, I can tell you who that is. That’s Orlando Anderson. Those are some of the people that are stomping him. He’s your most likely suspect,” they’re like, “We agree. What are you guys doing?”
Compton PD is like, “Well, as a result of what happened to Tupac, we’ve got a bunch of follow-up crimes, shootings, this little mini war that started, and we’re gonna write search warrants, and hopefully we can come up with a murder weapon or some bona fide evidence to solidify our theory about Orlando.”
The search warrants were conducted. Orlando Anderson was detained. He was detained under the premise of another murder that he was a suspect in, of a guy named Edward Webb. And so Las Vegas comes out and basically Orlando says, you know, “Am I under arrest for something?”
They’re like, “Well, why would you be under arrest for something regarding us?”
So there’s this little back-and-forth game. But Orlando Anderson wasn’t confessing. They were strategic about how to approach him. He wanted a lawyer. And so they figured, Well, obviously, we need evidence. And having a cop from Compton say, “Hey, the guy on the videotape is Orlando Anderson. He’s the guy that Tupac got into a fight with”—that’s not evidence of a murder. That’s just evidence to establish motive. But it’s not evidence that you could arrest somebody and then ultimately prosecute them on. They needed corroborating witness information, and they didn’t have it. Informants are saying Orlando is going around saying he did it, but that’s hearsay evidence. They needed eyewitness evidence.
CATHY SCOTT The Vegas police held the case very close to their chest and wouldn’t talk to Compton police. They couldn’t identify Orlando, and it was the Compton police detectives who went to Vegas police and identified Orlando Anderson for them. After the beatdown at the casino, they didn’t even take his name. They didn’t even do an incident report. So cops show up. We can see it on video. He didn’t want to file charges. They go, “Okay.” It’s on tape. They got it. They don’t need him as a witness.
It was really a comedy of errors on their part that amounted to a really shoddy investigation into one of the biggest murder cases in Las Vegas history, including the mob. It’s up there with Spilotro.IV Many things would be comical, if it weren’t so sad.
KENDRICK WELLS I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The first thing you think automatically is Tupac is invincible. He’ll survive. Then more information started coming in.
DR. JOHN FILDES I did my general surgery training in the South Bronx. I was at the Bronx-Lebanon hospital in New York. And it’s there that I developed a professional interest in treating trauma and critical care. I went and did fellowship training in Chicago, at the Cook County hospital, and was invited on faculty and practiced as faculty at Cook County trauma center for seven years. After that, I was recruited to Nevada to run and to grow the trauma center here. In 1996, it was the only trauma center in Las Vegas. Every patient injured in the city was brought to us. We always—24/7, 365, always—have a surgeon, an anesthesiologist, an operating room, and an emergency physician in the trauma center, ready to take patients out of the back of ambulances and put them on the table. Every minute of every day.
The Tupac event came not long after I started. I was at home that night, and I never saw Tupac and I never treated him. But as the director of trauma, the hospital required me to be the public spokesperson for this. That’s how my name became associated with his. I personally know all the physicians who treated him in trauma and who operated on him and who cared for him in the ICU. And I’ve recently reached out to them for another story that was being written to see if they were ready to talk about it. And none of them will talk. At the time of 1996, they were afraid for their personal safety and the safety of their families because of the uncertain circumstances surrounding this. And now they’re concerned about the federal regulations for patient protection. The statute of limitations on that’s not until thirty years. So nobody will come forward who actually touched or treated him, but I was a public spokesperson. I know everything that went on about it, and I can talk about it.
On a night like this, we would receive a radio call from EMS saying, “We’re inbound with a patient with multiple gunshot wounds and unstable vital signs
.” And we would assemble the trauma team around in the trauma center. They would be wearing operating gear like hats and masks and gloves and gowns, and they would be standing around the gurney waiting for the patient to arrive. So they’re ready. It’s go time.
We had an anesthesiologist, we had a surgeon, we had an emergency medicine physician. We had resident physicians, nurses, technicians from respiratory, from laboratory, and so forth. He was one of two patients who arrived. The other patient was far more stable. He [Tupac] had low blood pressure and was treated with IV fluids and blood and immediately prepped for the OR. He also was intubated and artificially ventilated. There are photos of him on the ventilator. He went to the operating room, and he had lifesaving surgery and then was taken to the ICU and was managed minute by minute, twenty-four hours a day.
A lot of the physicians didn’t know who he was when he came in. And I mean, when we work on a Friday or Saturday night, we get people coming in one after another after another, and we don’t get their names. They didn’t realize until later that evening, or till the next day, that Tupac was of importance to the media and the arts. So he was treated cutting-edge, he was treated aggressively, and he was treated well, like every other patient gets treated when they come through the door. They didn’t really engage him as a celebrity.
GOBI RAHIMI The first night they had him on the first floor and he was visible from outside the windows. Yaasmyn tried to get them to move him, but they weren’t having it. I felt like I was Enzo the Baker, the Persian version. It was unreal. It was the number one rapper in the world and it became so clear that a Black man didn’t “deserve” what white people did.
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