Las Vegas police raided a home in connection with the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur. Why is it happening now?
TSeven years after Tupac Shakur was shot dead in a drive-by shootout on the Las Vegas Strip, police have issued a search warrant in connection with the rapper’s unsolved murder.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said it raided a property in Henderson, a town 15 miles southeast of the gambling mecca, on Monday, July 17, as part of an ongoing investigation into Shakur’s murder.
A spokesman told the Associated Press that no further details could be given about the explosive development of one of the most notorious unsolved murders in US history.
Although the police have never made an arrest, a 2002 investigation of Los Angeles Times Journalist Chuck Philips implicated several people in the murder, including Shakur’s hip-hop rival Christopher Wallace, better known by his stage name Notorious BIG.
At the time of his death in September 1996 at the age of 25, Shakur was one of the most famous hip hop stars in the world.
The mythology surrounding the changes Rapper has only grown since then.
Who is Tupac Shakur?
Lesane Parish Crooks was born in East Harlem, New York in 1971 to active members of the Black Panthers. At the age of one, he was renamed Tupac Amaru Shakur and took his mother’s maiden name.
Shakur moved to Baltimore with his mother in 1984 and studied drama, poetry and jazz at the Baltimore School for the Arts.
His family moved to Marin City, California in 1988 and he began recording music under the stage name MC New York, according to one report fan page.
Shakur signed to Interscope Records and released his first album, 2Pacalypse nowin 1991.
The critically acclaimed debut focused on issues such as gang violence and police corruption and was rebuked by then-Vice President Dan Quayle, according to one official biography.
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Snoop Dogg talks about his final moments with Tupac
He then released bestselling albums Strictly for my NIGGAZ, Thug Life: Volume 1, Me vs the World And All eyes are on me between 1993 and September 1996.
During this period he also gained praise for his acting performances in films poetic justice, standstill And Referring to a gang.
Shakur has had numerous run-ins with the police. In 1993 he was charged with aggravated assault for shooting two off-duty police officers in Atlanta. The charges were later dropped and Shakur settled civil charges with both officers.
He and two friends were ambushed at Quad Studios in Times Square in November 1994, with Shakur being shot five times after trying to fend off the attackers.
He later claimed in an interview that he was set up by Sean Coombs, better known as Puff Daddy, and the Notorious BIG.
The resulting claims and counterclaims sparked the bitter East Coast/West Coast hip hop feud.
In December 1994, Shakur was convicted of first-degree sexual abuse and later sentenced to 18 months to 4.5 years in prison.
He served eight months in prison before being released in 1995 pending appeal.
Tupac’s death
On September 7, 1996, Shakur attended a boxing match between his friend Mike Tyson and Bruce Sheldon at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas.
After the fight, Los Angeles Crip Gang member Shakur attacked Orlando Anderson in the hotel lobby in revenge for the recent beating of one of his bodyguards, who was linked to the rival street gang, the Bloods.
The attack was captured by the hotel’s security cameras.
According to Chuck Philip’s investigation, that night Anderson planned an immediate retaliatory strike with other gang members.
Tupac Shakur’s tragic death
The gang members reportedly received a $1 million payment and the gun used in the shooting from Notorious BIG, whose record label Bad Boy Entertainment was involved in a dispute with Shakur’s Death Row label.
Three hours later, around 11 p.m., Shakur and record-breaking impresario Suge Knight were driving a black BMW when they stopped at the traffic light on Las Vegas Boulevard.
As they chatted with fans, a white Cadillac pulled up next to them and an occupant armed with a semi-automatic fired multiple shots, hitting the hip-hop star who was sitting in the passenger seat four times.
Shakur died in hospital six days later from internal bleeding.
Anderson, the prime suspect in Shakur’s murder, was reportedly once questioned by Las Vegas detectives and pleaded innocent.
He was killed in an unrelated shooting in May 1998.
Notorious BIG strenuously denied any involvement in the murder. Six months after Shakur’s death, he was killed in a drive-by shootout in Los Angeles.
Shakur has posthumously released 11 albums and has sold 75 million records.
Since then he has received numerous honors and monuments. In 2015, the Grammy Museum honored his music career with the All Eyez on Me exhibit.
He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.
And in June, Shakur received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.