The Killing of Tupac Shakur (4 page)

“I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe,” Tupac kept repeating. Then, he crossed his hands over his body and was still.

At that point, Tupac was still alert, with his eyes open, watching what was going on around him. He was lifted onto
a gurney and put into the ambulance.

Frank Alexander described it, “I tried getting in the ambulance with Suge and Tupac. A motorcycle cop pushed me back, off of the ambulance, and told me to get away. That’s how I ended up staying [at the scene]. Suge was in the ambulance alone with Tupac.”

Suge climbed in and sat on a bench next to the gurney. Just as paramedics were closing the back doors to the ambulance, witnesses heard Tupac quietly say, “I’m dyin’, man.”

His words were prophetic: Tupac Amaru Shakur would succumb to his wounds six days later.

Yafeu Fula was a rapper in the group the Outlawz Immortal (since renamed the Outlawz), who backed up and toured with Tupac. Yafeu, whose on-stage name was “Kadafi” and whose friends called him “Yak,” was in the car with Frank Alexander and Malcolm Greenridge, directly behind Suge’s BMW, when the shooting occurred. Fula’s car stayed with the BMW as it careened down Flamingo Avenue and the Strip. He was questioned by detectives at the scene, then rode several hours later to University Medical Center where Tupac was being treated.

While on his way to the hospital to check on Tupac’s status, Yafeu Fula used a cell phone to call his mother, Yaasmyn Fula, and tell her what had happened. He said, “Call Afeni and tell her Tupac’s been shot.”

Yaasmyn Fula called her good friend Afeni Shakur and broke the news that Tupac had been gunned down and that it looked bad.

By the time Afeni Shakur was contacted by Yaasmyn, it was morning in Stone Mountain, Georgia, about 20 miles northeast of Atlanta, where Afeni lived in a home Tupac had purchased for her through Death Row Records. Afeni notified other family members. Then, accompanied by Tupac’s half-sister Sekyiwa Shakur and cousin Deena, she caught the
earliest flight available to Las Vegas.

They arrived in the afternoon and checked into Room 1039 of the Golden Nugget Hotel on Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas. They left for the hospital, about four miles from downtown on West Charleston Boulevard.

The official death watch had begun. For the next six days, Tupac’s family, friends, and fans kept a 24-hour vigil by his side.

Just hours earlier, after Tupac and Suge had arrived at the hospital by ambulance, Suge was admitted and placed in a regular hospital room. Tupac was taken to the trauma center’s intensive-care unit, where a medical team prepped him for what would be his first of several emergency procedures and surgeries.

Outside, a crowd had gathered, including local and out-of-town reporters.

A few hours after Tupac’s arrival, hospital spokesman Dale Pugh walked outside and held a news conference. He told the waiting reporters, “[Tupac’s] had a right lung removed, he’s back in his [private] room, and he remains in critical condition. He has been conscious. He is under a lot of medication, so he’s pretty sedated at this time. He’s severely injured. Suffering multiple gunshot wounds is obviously a terrible insult to the human body, so he’s required intensive care, and he is receiving that right now.”

Tupac was, indeed, in grave condition. Before undergoing the first surgery, he was placed on a ventilator and respirator. The next day, still on life-support machines, he was put in a drug-induced coma. Allowed in his room to see him in five-minute increments that first day, along with family members, were Suge Knight, Mike Tyson, MC Hammer, actress Jasmine Guy, Kidada Jones, and the Reverend Jesse Jackson Jr. Later in the week, the Reverend Al Sharpton visited Tupac’s bedside. The trauma unit allows just two people in a room at one time. Visitors other than family are allowed to visit every three hours, five times a day, for 20 minutes each. Tyson stood up reporters at a news conference the Sunday after the Seldon match, but he made it to Tupac’s side that
same day. Tupac remained in a coma.

The same Sunday morning, Reverend Jackson, together with local Reverend James Rogers, then-president of the Las Vegas office of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, local Baptist minister Willie Davis, and NAACP assistant to the president, the Reverend Chester Richardson, attended services at the Second Baptist Church in West Las Vegas. There, Reverend Jackson gave a sermon about Tupac.

“Before you condemn Tupac for calling women bitches and ho’s in his music,” Jackson told parishioners, “you need to understand and know about the background of this man and where he came from. He was raised by a woman who was on crack. He didn’t have a real mama. Don’t condemn him for talking about his mama and for talking about women.” Jackson asked churchgoers to pray for Tupac’s recovery. Children and teenagers in the congregation cried as he spoke about the gravely injured rapper.

After visiting four other churches in West Las Vegas, which is known as “the Westside” and is the largest African-American community in Las Vegas, Reverend Jackson stopped by the hospital to visit Tupac. The civil rights leader first met Tupac when he was 12. Reverend Davis drove with Jackson to the hospital’s trauma unit, where Jackson stood with Davis and prayed for 15 minutes at Tupac’s bedside.

Outside, plainclothes gang-unit detectives assigned to the hospital kept a watchful eye on the usually quiet side streets surrounding University Medical Center.

MC Hammer drove up in his dark-green Hummer and parked on the street in front of the hospital’s trauma center. Unaccompanied, he walked silently, with his head down, past reporters, ignoring their questions. He sat in the waiting room for about 30 minutes, waiting his turn to visit Tupac.

That Sunday, less than 24 hours after the shooting, T-shirts with Tupac’s image were already being sold on the corner of D Street and Jackson Avenue in the heart of the Westside.

• • •

Homicide detectives and crime-scene analysts finished their work at the scene as the sun was rising early Sunday morning, then returned to their offices to work on their reports. Sergeant Kevin Manning wrote up a one-page press release and faxed it to the local media:

LAS VEGAS METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT MEDIA RELEASE

September 8, 1996

Event #: 960908-2063SGT.

KEVIN MANNING

HOMICIDE SECTION

PHONE: 229-3521

September 8, 1996: At approximately 11:15 p.m., LVMPD patrol officers were at the Maxim Hotel on an unrelated call when they heard several shots being fired from Flamingo Road and Koval Lane. The officers looked to the area of the shots from the Maxim parking garage. They saw several vehicles and numerous people in the street. Several of the vehicles made a U-turn from eastbound Flamingo to westbound Flamingo, leaving the area at a high rate of speed.

The vehicles were stopped at the intersection of Las Vegas Blvd. and Harmon. Bike patrol officers were first at the scene and discovered two men suffering from gunshot wounds. Medical assistance was requested and the two victims were transported to UMC-Trauma.

The victims have been identified as Tupac Shakur, 25, and Marion Knight, 31. Shakur was the passenger in the vehicle and received several gunshot wounds. He was still in surgery and the injuries were considered serious. Knight received a
minor wound to the head and was expected to be treated and released.

The investigation so far has determined that the Shakur and Knight group had attended the Tyson fight and were headed for a local nightclub. The group consisted of approximately 10 vehicles that were traveling in a loose convoy. As the vehicles approached the intersection of Flamingo and Koval, a late ’90s, white, 4-door Cadillac containing four people pulled up beside the Shakur/Knight vehicle and one of the people in the Cadillac started shooting into the Shakur/Knight vehicle. The suspect vehicle then fled south on Koval.

Anyone with information in regards to this incident is urged to call Secret Witness at 385-5555 or Metro Homicide at 229-3521.

Two detectives, Brent Becker and Mike Franks, waited outside Suge Knight’s hospital room early Sunday morning to interview him about what he saw during the shooting. Suge claimed to be too busy with visitors passing through his room to talk to police. Suge instructed a nurse to ask the detectives to come back later. But at eleven o’clock Sunday morning, Suge was released –
before
the detectives returned to the hospital to take his statement. Suge went home to his Las Vegas estate without giving a witness statement to the police.

Two days later, on Tuesday, three of Suge Knight’s attorneys – David Chesnoff and Steve Steiner from Las Vegas and David Kenner from Los Angeles – made arrangements with detectives to meet at homicide headquarters on West Charleston Boulevard, about four miles west of the hospital. All three lawyers are criminal defense attorneys. Under the circumstances, it didn’t seem unusual for Suge to seek their help since, at the scene, he was treated like a suspect, not a victim, and ordered face down on the pavement. It was the same day that then-Sergeant Greg McCurdy, a department spokesman at the time, updated reporters on the status of the
investigation with this missive: “We have nothing.”

Meanwhile, back at homicide headquarters, Sergeant Manning said detectives had “many conversations with the attorneys” in setting a meeting with Knight, Knight’s attorneys, and homicide investigators in attendance. “We’ve had contact with his attorney, but as of yet haven’t seen him,” Manning said. The lawyers told detectives that Suge was still recovering from his shrapnel wound. But their biggest fear, attorneys told detectives, was that Suge would be inundated by the press before and after the meeting. To guard against this, neither the time nor the location of the meeting was released to the media beforehand.

Sergeant Manning and detectives Franks and Becker waited three hours on Tuesday, September 10, but the foursome never showed. The investigators grew impatient and went home for the night (unless there’s a homicide, a detective’s day ends promptly at four p.m.). One of Suge’s lawyers later told the detectives that they did go to homicide headquarters that evening, but not until after six p.m., when no one was there.

The next day, on Wednesday, September 11, four days after the shooting, Suge Knight and his attorneys again made arrangements and did finally meet with police at homicide headquarters. Two detectives and one sergeant – the team assigned to Tupac’s shooting – interviewed Suge for less than an hour (one detective said it was for 30 minutes, while another said 45). The interview took place in a small conference room off the front lobby in the single-story complex.

Suge offered little, if any, new information, investigators said. He told them he “heard something, but saw nothing.”

“We were hoping he would tell us who shot him,” Sergeant Manning said. “He didn’t give us anything beneficial. Nothing he said helped us.”

Manning said the only real evidence investigators had was “the number of bullet holes in the passenger door of the BMW.”

Las Vegas attorney David Chesnoff criticized the detectives’ short interview of his client, saying, “They didn’t ask
him in-depth questions. It was like they didn’t want to know the details.”

Sergeant Manning issued a news release the day after homicide’s interview with Suge Knight, dated Thursday, September 12, 1996.

LATEST INFORMATION REGARDING THELESANE P. CROOKS (A K A TUPAC SHAKUR) AND MARION H. KNIGHT (A K A SUGE) SHOOTING UPDATE

On the evening of 9/11/96, the attorneys for Marion “Suge” Knight made arrangements for Knight to be interviewed by LVMPD homicide investigators.

Knight made himself available for the interview, but was unable to give the investigators any information that would help in determining a motive, nor was he able to help identify possible suspects.

The investigation is at the same juncture. Investigators are hopeful someone will be able to provide information [of] substance.

A $1,000 reward is available for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the suspects. Anyone with information is urged to contact Secret Witness at (702) 385-5555 or LVMPD homicide at 229-3521.

Police said that a large reward would have prompted someone to come forward. Just $1,000, they said, wasn’t incentive enough for witnesses to talk.

“We were hoping that there would be some type of reward that would be offered as an incentive for someone to come forward, but that’s not happened and no one has really come forward since the night of the incident,” said then-homicide Lieutenant Larry Spinosa.

Meanwhile, Tupac Shakur remained in a coma. A doctor treating him would only say that he had a 50-50 chance of
survival. However, Doctor John Fildes, chief of trauma surgery at University Medical Center’s trauma unit, elaborated, telling a reporter that the gunshot wounds Tupac suffered usually proved fatal. But he emphasized that Tupac had passed a critical phase.

“Overall, of all comers with a gunshot wound in the chest that passes through the blood vessels connecting the heart and lungs, only one in five survive,” Doctor Fildes said. “The majority die in the first 24 to 48 hours from shock and bleeding during the treatment and surgery phase.”

For victims such as Tupac who survive the first 24 hours, the chances of survival “would be more than one in five.” He said patients with wounds similar to Tupac’s also “die during the second major risk period, after five or seven days, when difficulties in oxygenation or the presence of infections or other complications arise.” Fildes emphasized that he wasn’t personally attending to Tupac, but simply commenting on the chances of survival for someone suffering such injuries. Fildes, in 2002, was the director of the trauma center.

University Medical Center at the time had the only “stand-alone” trauma center west of the Mississippi, with a trauma resuscitation area, angiography room, and three operating roms. A 14-bed trauma intensive-care unit, where Tupac was being treated, adjoined the resuscitation and operating areas. Tupac was in good hands and was receiving the best of care, but, as Fildes put it, his chances were 50-50.