.:: Tupac Shakur LV Shooting (1996)

.:: Las Vegas Shooting

On the 7th, Tupac went back to L.A.. Tupac decided he wasn’t gonna go to Las Vegas, but to Atlanta to settle problems with some relatives instead. Suge got him to change his plans though. Tupac told Kidada that morning there was a heavy-weight bout that night at the MGM Grand , and weeks before he’d promised Suge he’d go to it with him. He also said he didn’t want to go, but he’d given Suge his word. He said she could come along, not to the fight, he didn’t want her with that roudy bunch, but to the party Suge was having afterward at a club he owned downtown, and if she were beside him it would be ok. When they got back his house in Calabasas, Kidada started packing. When she reached for his bulletproof vest that he always wore. Tupac said, "No, It’ll be too hot." Then they left. They stopped at a gas station and Tupac bought five magazines about guns. He read them until they reached the Luxor Hotel. Tupac went to Suge’s mansion southeast of downtown. They partied for a while. Tupac made a video of him calling Keisha and another girl. Then he went to the MGM Grand to watch the Mike Tyson / Bruce Seldon fight. He was mad because Suge showed up at the last minute. He sat in section 4, row E, seat 2. Tupac said, "Did you see Tyson do it to him? Tyson did it to him! Did ya’ll see that? We bad like that. Come out of prison and now we running shit." He went backstage and hugged Mike. At 8:45 P.M., Travon Lane (Tray) was walking near the hotel’s Grand Garden with Death Row’s crew. Tray pointed out Orlando to Tupac. Tupac ran down the hallway until he met up with Orlando. Tupac asked, "You from the South?" It escalated into a fight and Tupac started beating the shit out of him. Later the rest of the Deathrow crew arrived and helped him beat him up. There was only one bodyguard with the crew, and he had to pull Tupac out of it twice. They knocked Orlando down and began kicking and punching him. A security camera recorded the incident on tape. The fight was stopped by hotel security, and Orlando was held for questioning by the police, then was allowed to leave after he declined to press charges. As left he gave his signed $1000 ticket’s stub into the fight to a guy. He said, "Here you go, boy. Enjoy this." Tupac left at 8:55, to go back to the hotel. Tupac went up to Hammer’s car and told me about the incident that had just happen. Hammer asked him some questions about it and he said it was all squashed and not to worry about it. While he was getting in his car he was bragging about how Tyson took him out in 50 punches and all he had to do was three punches and the dude was on the ground. Tupac’s bodyguard said he had trouble getting him to wear his vest, and he wouldn’t wear it very often. He didn’t wear it at all the whole night. Since they were in Las Vegas they legally couldn’t carry guns, but guns were brought anyways. They were in a hurry leaving the fight though, and the bodyguard forgot his gun in his car. When he got to the hotel he told Kidada, "Some nigga started a fight with me for nothin.’ Something’s up, you stay here." He was also upset because he couldn’t find the Outlaws, who were supposed to be at the fight. He changed clothes then went back to Suge’s house. They got ready for party at Club 662, where 2Pac was going to perform. Tupac had wanted to drive his Hummer, but Suge said that they had things to discuss and got Tupac to ride with him. Two hours later, Suge in his black, tinted-window ’96 BMW 750 sedan left the mansion with Tupac in the passenger seat, and the 10-car entourage behind them. They were listening to The Don Killuminati The 7 Day Theory very low in the BMW. At 10:55, Tupac rolled down the window and a photographer took their picture at a red light. At 11:00, they were stopped on Las Vegas Blvd. by Metro bicycle cops for playing his car stereo too loud and for not having license plates, which were in the trunk on his rented car. He was not cited and was released a few minutes later. At a red light, on Flamingo Road, near the intersection of Koval Lane, in front of the Maxim Hotel two girls distracted Tupac and Suge on the driver’s side, and at 11:15, a white, four-door, late-model, Cadillac with California plates pulled up. Tupac had been standing up through the sunroof. Two of the four men inside the car got out and fired thirteen rounds into the passenger side of the car, from a Glock .40 caliber handgun. He tried to get into the backseat, but Suge pulled him down, and a bullet bounced off of his right hip boneand hit is lung. He was also hit in his right hand and chest. Suge was barely hit by a bullet, and suffered a minor head wound. Immediately after the shooting, the Cadillac went south on Koval. Suge made a U-turn from the left lane of Flamingo and sped West toward Las Vegas Blvd., away from the nearest hospital. Suge said that he told Tupac he’d get him to a hospital, and Tupac said, "I need a hospital? You’re the one shot in the head." Patrol officers on an unrelated call at the Maxim Hotel had heard the gunshots and called for back-up. Two other officers followed the BMW, which took a left on Las Vegas Blvd. South, and police reached the car when it was caught in traffic at the intersection of Las Vegas Blvd. and Harmon Ave. The officers called an ambulance. The BMW was covered with blood and pieces of gold, from Tupac’s jewelry, on the inside, and had two flat tires. They brought Tupac out of the car and layed him down on the stretcher. He kept saying, "I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe." The ambulance took Tupac and Suge to the University of Nevada Medical Center. Sgt. Kevin Manning was assigned as leading investigator, and Cathy Scott was named lead reporter for the shooting. When the police questioned the bodyguard they continously asked if he had shot back, and when he said no they asked who had shot back. The bodyguard thought it was Suge’s friends which were mostly blood members. Yafeu Fula had been in the car behind the BMW with bodyguards. He told the police that he could do a photo lineup and gave them his number. A man told Compton police that at Club 662, he heard Tray say that the shooter was Orlando’s uncle Dwayne Keith Davis (Keefee D). Tupac lost 22 oz of blood on the way to the hospital. As he was being carried to the emergencyroom he said, "I’m dying." Tupac was admitted and listed in critical condition. His injuries included a gunshot wound to his right chest with a massive hemothorax and a gunshot wound to the right thigh with the bullet palpable within the abdomen. He also had a gunshot wound to a right finger with a fracture. The preoperative diagnosis was a gunshot wound to the chest and abdomen and post-operative bleeding. Just before midnight he was taken to UMC’s Trauma Center. He was wheeled into the recovery area and was resuscitated according to advanced trauma life support protocol and a full trauma activation was called. He was placed on life support machines. Two liters of blood that had hemorrhaged into his chest cavity were removed. His pulse was very thready and initially he had a minimal bloodpressure, which rapidly declined. He was taken immediately to the operating room for operative intervention and further resuscitation. He underwent surgery which consisted of ligation of bleeding, and a surgeon removed a bullet from his pelvic area which was done at midnight and finished at 2:35am on the 8th. Th eBMW remained in the impound lot at Ewing Bros. Auto Body and Towing lot in North Las Vegas it’s right front and rear ends damaged. Police found no guns inside the car, just a cigar caseand a Motorola cell phone. He underwent another operation that started at 6:25 p.m. and lasted an hour. It was exploratory surgery, and his punctured right lung was removed to stop internal bleeding. He was back in his room at 7:45. American Express said that Suge had rented 21 Las Vegas hotel rooms at $50 each for last night. Tupac was put in a medicinally induced coma and on life support to take pressure off his body. Three Bloodsets met at Lueders Park, and talked about retaliation against the Southside Crips for the attack on Tupac. At 2:58 p.m., on East Alondra a man who Las Vegas police said may have been in the Cadillac was shot in the back on the 9th. At 8 P.M., 20 of Tupac’s friends ran across the street from the traumacenter’s lobby to a car whose driver police had stopped to talk to. Sgt. Cindi West said that they had pulled up to see what was going on and a guy misunderstood and wouldn’t cooperate. The people came out not knowing what was going on and got in the way and were pushing some of the officers. The police handcuffed four men who were later released. Two men were found with butts of marijuana cigarettes, but weren’t arrested. He opened his eyes once, while Kidada was putting Don McLean’s "Vincent" into a player next to his bed. She asked him if he heard her and to move his feet. He did. She asked if he knew she loved him. He nodded. Then he went into a coma. On the 10th, Blackstreet’s album, Another Level came out. "No Diggity," sounds like "Toss It Up." 2Pac had the song done with Aaron Hall before Dre did it, and "Toss It Up" is actually a remix of the original song, because Dre copied it. Aaron Hall, ex-partner of Teddy Riley was the original writer. "Don’t Leave Me" sounds like "I Ain’t Mad At Cha." 2Pac’s concert in Oakland was cancelled. His next concert will be in Oakland if city officials will agree to it. On the 11th, Bobby Finch, a Southside Crip who Compton cops said may have also been in the Cadillac, was gunned down on South Mayo at 9:05 am. Suge and three lawyers spoke with METRO police for an hour and left them with nothing in the way of leads towards suspects or motives. In Compton, Orlando’s cousin Jerry Bonds drove the white Cadillac into an autoshop on White and Alondra with another guy at 3 P.M.. On the 12th Tupac was supposed to have gone to court for sentencing on weapons charges for carrying a concealed gun when he attacked Allen Hughes. On Friday the 13th, doctors tried to resuscitate Tupac several times, then Afeni said not to try again. When Tupac took his last breath Gloria Jean praised his body and could bear witness to who it was. He died at 4:03 (4 + 0 + 3 = 7) p.m. at the Intensive Care Unit. He was pronounced dead by Dr. Lovett o frespiratory failure and cardiopulmonary arrest. The bodyguard had been at Suge’s house, and Suge was mad at him and blaming him for not having his gun with him. He was coming towards him in a threatening way when the phone rang, and he found out Tupac died. Suge told the bodyguard that it didn’t matter now because he’s gone, and his voice was cracking up like he wasg oing to cry. Afeni made a positive identification of Tupac’s body at 5. A mortuary van took his body to the Clark County Coroner’s office at 5:10. They did an autopsy. It determined that Tupac didn’t have any illegal drugs in hisbody, but was heavily sedated. The autopsy report is on file at the office, but is not deemed by Nevada state law to be public. There were ballistics tests, but the results have not been made public. They took six pictures of him which were put on file at the office. Two general assignment detectives took Polaroid pictures of Tupac at the morgue for a police training book, bu tlater were removed from the book and destroyed. They sent his blood to Long Beach Genetics, who did the DNA testing to find the probability of Afeni and Billy 99.97% parentage. Two more Bloods were shot and killed by an assailant who fled on foot. He was cremated. On the 14th, Afeni spread some of his ashes on a hill in L.A. and some on her garden, which has now flourished. Tupac’s family held a private funeral for him in Las Vegas. On the 15th, he was mourned during a memorial service at The House of the Lord Pentecostal Church in Brooklyn, where he was still listed as a member of the congregation. Police had thought that the man at the MGM Grand could have been a suspect, but was ruled out because security was still holding him when Tupac had left the building. Because Tupac didn’t have a will, Afeni had to file court papers as the only living heir and that she was the administer of his estate. Death Row emptied the apartment and took the furniture which Tupac was charged over $100,000 for. Cathy got an autopsy photo of Tupac dissected on a table at the morgue. It is not an official coroner or police photo, and was offered $100,000 for it from The National Enquirer.