The Killing of Tupac Shakur (24 page)

In March 1997, MTV News reported that Tupac’s murder had touched off a gang war in Compton and that Compton police informants had heard that Orlando was the trigger man.

The day after the MTV story aired, Orlando’s attorney arranged for him to appear on CNN to dispute the accusation to a national audience. Orlando, who sat quietly on a studio set next to his attorney, spoke briefly to the CNN reporter. “I just want to let everybody know that I didn’t do it,” Anderson said.

Orlando also told CNN that he was afraid for his life and rarely left his house for fear of retaliation for being accused of killing Tupac. What critics couldn’t forget, however, was the look on his face as he spoke to CNN. It looked like he was smiling. Was it out of shyness, embarrassment, or guilt?

To the
Los Angeles Times
, Orlando said, “I wish they would hurry up and catch the killer so my name could be cleared.”

Ironically, while some may have wished Orlando ill, believing he was a passenger in the Cadillac from which the gunman fired, his murder was unrelated to Tupac’s, according to Captain Danny Sneed with the Compton Police Department.

“Apparently, one of the guys involved in this owed Anderson some money,” Sneed said. “An argument ensued; guns came out. It had nothing to do with Shakur’s murder. Anderson was a known gang member. [But] as it related to
this case, it had nothing to do with gang affiliation or Tupac Shakur.”

• • •

Orlando Anderson’s usually guarded demeanor was down when he left his house that day; he was unarmed when he was killed, but only because his friend, police later said, had taken his gun away from him. It was his childhood friend, Michael Reed Dorrough, 24 at the time, who, while sitting in the passenger seat of Orlando’s black sports-utility vehicle, started the gunfight, Sneed said.

What happened that Friday afternoon was that Orlando drove his friend Dorrough to a hamburger joint, across the street from a car wash, located at the center of Compton and down the street from a high school. While at the hamburger place, they saw Michael Stone, who owed Orlando money. Stone, 41, had left his vehicle at the car wash so it could be hand-detailed. Anderson and Dorrough, tipped off that Stone would show up there, sat in Orlando’s SUV, eating their hamburgers and patiently waiting for Michael Stone to return for his car.

Just after three p.m., Stone arrived. Anderson and Dorrough thought Stone was alone, but a few feet away stood Stone’s nephew, 24-year-old Jerry Stone. As Michael Stone walked to his car, Orlando drove up next to him, and the three began to argue. Then Dorrough, from the front passenger seat, started firing, Captain Sneed said. Jerry Stone, who was standing a few feet away, returned fire, blasting Orlando’s SUV.

“When one man began firing his weapon, another returned the fire with a handgun. Four people were shot,” said Sneed, who said he was at the scene of the shootout minutes after it happened.

Orlando Anderson, tried to drive away from the spray of gunfire. Bleeding from several gunshot wounds, he managed to drive about 200 yards down the street. When Compton police officers arrived, they found Orlando’s SUV on a curb
and against a pole. Orlando was slumped over the steering wheel, dying. Dorrough was still in the SUV. Both were taken by ambulance to Martin Luther King Hospital. Orlando Anderson was dead on arrival.

Suffering from minor injuries, Dorrough, the one who police said started the gunfight, was taken to St. Francis Hospital, where Compton police took him into custody.

Michael Stone was also taken by ambulance to Martin Luther King. He died the next day. Jerry Stone, who was taken to the same hospital by a friend, died of his wounds a short time after his arrival.

Michael Dorrough was initially booked on two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. After Michael Stone’s death the next day, Dorrough’s charges were upgraded to three counts of open murder.

At the completion of the police investigation, Sneed issued this press release, dated Wednesday, July 22, 1998:

On May 29, 1998, at 3:11 p.m., the Compton Police Department received several 911 calls of shots fired at a car wash located in the area of Alondra Boulevard and Oleander Avenue. Upon officers arrival in the area, they discovered three gunshot victims. Compton Fire Department paramedics responded and administered treatment prior to transporting victims to local area hospitals. Victim Jerry Stone was located at Martin Luther King Hospital, after having been transported to the hospital by private vehicle.

The investigation has revealed that four subjects became involved in an altercation over a previous monetary dispute. Suspect Dorrough removed a handgun and began shooting. Victim Jerry Stone removed a handgun and returned fire. Numerous shots were fired and all four subjects involved were shot.

Anderson drove off, with Dorrough as the passenger, and both were found by police a short
distance away. Dorrough was treated and released for minor injuries and booked at Compton Police Department. Anderson, Jerry Stone, and Michael Stone died at Martin Luther King Hospital.

Although this incident did occur near a high school, this was in no way connected to the high school or its students. No persons injured or involved were connected to the high school in any way.

Although gang members may have been involved, this does not appear to be gang-related.

A team of homicide and gang detectives have concluded an investigation in this matter. Suspect Michael Dorrough has been charged with three counts of murder and is awaiting trial. Anyone having information regarding this shooting is encouraged to call the Compton Police Department at 310-605-6505.

SUSPECT: Michael Reed Dorrough, male African-American, DOB 2-9-74, resident of Long Beach.

VICTIMS: Orlando Anderson, male African-American, DOB 8-13-74, resident of Compton, DECEASED. Michael Stone, male African-American, DOB 12-18-56, resident of Compton, DECEASED. Jerry Junior Stone, male African-American, DOB 8-20-73, resident of Compton, DECEASED.

Even though Michael Dorrough didn’t personally shoot all the victims, he was charged with all three murders because police contended he was responsible for the deaths. “He started the gunfight,” Captain Sneed told me. “That’s why he’s being charged with all the murders.”

Investigators with the LAPD confiscated Orlando Anderson’s SUV, hoping it would help them in their investigation of the Biggie Smalls murder. “We stood by while LAPD recovered the car,” Sneed said. That was the first anyone had learned that Orlando was being investigated in Biggie’s murder, not just Tupac’s. Later, after the LAPD crime lab didn’t
turn up any evidence connecting Orlando to Biggie’s case, the LAPD returned the vehicle to Compton police, Sneed said.

• • •

The Compton gun battle marked an end to a stormy 19 months for Orlando Anderson. During the time between Tupac’s death and Anderson’s, police ended up twice seizing materials from Orlando’s uncle’s house, which was owned by “Keefee D” Davis. Davis was never charged with a crime. At the time, Orlando denied living in the house.

An affidavit filed in court by Compton police also contended that Orlando was seen several days after Tupac’s shooting carrying a Glock 40-caliber handgun, the same type of semiautomatic weapon said to be used to kill Tupac. Others said Orlando had bragged about his involvement.

Gilbert D. Sanchez, an expert in gang violence at Cal State University, Los Angeles, and himself a former gang member, said, “I heard the Crips did it [Tupac’s murder], but I’m not in a position to say for sure. Usually a person doesn’t brag at all. He may be trying to look good in front of someone else.”

Orlando Anderson’s family continued to deny that Orlando had anything to do with Tupac’s death. Although Orlando had earlier links to the Crips and he was anything but a Boy Scout, he didn’t come across as an archetypal gang-banger. He graduated from high school and even attended Compton College for a semester. He was never convicted of a crime. His half-brother, Pooh, graduated in 1999 from the University of California at Berkeley.

Also, friends said that Orlando didn’t drink, didn’t take drugs, didn’t smoke, and didn’t sport tattoos.

Orlando had two girlfriends simultaneously and had fathered four children by the time he was 23. He didn’t appear ever to have been gainfully employed and never filed a federal tax return. He lived a lower-middle-class life despite having no obvious means of support. In an interesting twist, Orlando was starting his own record label at the time of his murder.

The probable-cause affidavit from Compton police for Orlando’s arrest at his uncle’s house was thrown out of court. Thus, Orlando was never prosecuted. In it, however, Orlando was identified by Travon “Tray” Lane as being at the scene of an L.A. murder. In addition, he was once suspected of killing Edward Webb in April 1996. He was also identified as being behind a retaliatory attack on Bloods following the murder of Bobby Finch, a bodyguard who grew up with the Southside Crips, the sect Orlando was said to belong to. Finch was shot to death in the bloodbath that erupted in the days after Tupac was shot and was believed to have been a passenger in the Cadillac used by the assailant who’d murdered Tupac.

Meanwhile, three Bloods members were fired on and wounded in two separate shootings. On September 13, the day Tupac died, two more Bloods were shot and killed by an assailant who fled on foot.

And as the gang war raged, police in Compton and Las Vegas continued to receive tips that “Keefee D’s nephew” or “Baby Lane” (a.k.a. Orlando Anderson) was the one who had shot Tupac.

Armed with this information, Compton police were confident in resolutions to both their April 1996 murder and Tupac’s September 1997 killing. However, Los Angeles County District Attorney Janet Moore refused to hold Orlando, because she believed there was not enough evidence to indict him in the April 1996 Compton murder. And Las Vegas police said there wasn’t enough evidence to hold Orlando in the Tupac killing.

After Tupac’s death, Orlando Anderson filed an assault charge against Tupac’s estate, claiming he was assaulted by Tupac at the MGM Grand Hotel (during the infamous scuffle following the Tyson bout). Tupac’s mother, Afeni Shakur, filed a countersuit against Anderson for wrongful death in her son’s murder.

After Anderson was himself shot to death, his estate claimed that only hours before he was killed, his attorney was told by Tupac’s attorneys that he would receive a $78,000
settlement from Shakur’s estate. When no money was paid, a breach-of-contract suit was filed on behalf of Anderson’s family. Later, A. Ammar Kharouf, an attorney for the Shakur family, confirmed that a settlement had eventually been reached and the lawsuit subsequently dismissed. Kharouf and Anderson family attorney Renee L. Campbell would not disclose the amount.

Rap began as a beat in the streets and word play. It draws its roots from the Jamaican art form known as “toasting.” Early rapper DJ Kool Herc said that “the whole chemistry of rap came from Jamaica.”

“I was born in Jamaica,” he has said, “and I was listening to American music in Jamaica. In Jamaica, all you needed was a drum and bass. My music is all about heavy bass.”

In the early days, when rap was just getting started, the rhyming was added. Its authentic from-the-street lyrics were crucial to rap’s success. Rap developed into an East Coast cultural phenomenon, which included graffiti and break dancing.

“[For me], the rhyming came about because I liked playing lyrics that were saying something,” DJ Kool Herc said. “I figured people would pick it up by me playing those records, but at the same time I would say something myself with a meaningful message to it.”

Herc identifies the first rappers, besides himself, as Coke La Rock (whose first stage name was A-1 Coke), Timmy Tim, Clark Kent, and Bo King, American rappers all. Artists such as James Brown, the Last Poets, and Gil Scott Heron helped influence rap’s early years.

Surfacing in the ’70s, rap was a vibrant provocative new
musical form from America’s urban black community. It has progressed into different sounds and different avenues. Its free-style music, a form of electro funk—music with a beat in the background and an emcee, or a rhymer, rapping to it in front.

The first real hip-hop song, “Rapper’s Delight” by Henry “Big Banle” Hanle, broke into the mainstream in 1979 under the first hip-hop label, Sugarhill Gang. Hanle was a club bouncer who started out emceeing and rapping in a New Jersey pizzeria. Early hip-hop rappers were Melle Mel, Grand Master Flash, and Rakim. Rakim was one of the first to rap about the living conditions of blacks and Latinos. (The trend continues today. Tupac Shakur often said his music showed how he and others like him really lived the ghetto and street experience.)

In 1987, the music industry for the first time recognized rap music by giving it a separate category at the American Music Awards. It was a monumental move that put rap into the mainstream.

Hip hop became the term for the culture surrounding rap music. True hip hop, purists in the music industry contend, evolved from beebop in the 1950s. Rapping (or emceeing), scratching records, break dancing, and graffiti are a part of the hip-hop culture. How the rappers act, walk, look, and talk are also a large part of the scene; without those elements, rappers say, the music is colorless. Like rap, hip hop was popularized in the mid 1970s, particularly in the South Bronx section of New York City. It has thrived within the African-American and Puerto Rican communities in New York. It’s referred to today as the culture of the Hip Hop Nation.

In the late 1980s, “gangsta” rap splintered off from the larger hip-hop/rap culture. The lyrics borrowed heavily from the ’60s and ’70s themes of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll—with primary focus on gangs, weapons, and violence. Infused in the style were new words and phrases, such as gats (19th-century Gatling guns), gang wars, bitches and ho’s, blunts (fat marijuana joints or cigars), 40-ouncers (bottles of malt
liquor), and 25 with an L (a prison sentence of 25 years to life). Gangsta rap had become about as “street” and hardcore as any other music before it.