What happened 7 September 1996, the night of Tupac Shakur’s deathpublished at 20:32 BST
20:32 BST
Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption,
Tupac (right) with rapper and music collaborator Snoop Dogg attend a music awards ceremony three days before he was shot
The night in question at this trial began when Tupac Shakur and Marion “Suge” Knight attended a boxing match between Mike Tyson and Bruce Seldon at the MGM Grand.
After the match, surveillance footage captured Tupac and members of his entourage, who police have said were associated the Mob Piru Bloods street gang, attacking a man named Orlando Anderson, an alleged member of the South Side Compton Crips.
About three hours after the attack, Tupac was riding in the passenger seat of Knight’s BMW driving through Las Vegas when a white Cadillac pulled alongside them and opened fire.
Tupac was hit four times and died six days later.
For nearly three decades, the killing remained one of America’s most famous unsolved murders. There is no single explanation why.Las Vegas police have long said witnesses refused to co-operate.
Members of Tupac’s entourage said police initially treated them like suspects and failed to follow important leads. Within weeks of the shooting, investigators had identified Anderson from the MGM footage and questioned him.
He denied involvement and was never charged; he was killed in an unrelated shooting in 1998.
Over the years, police say they pursued thousands of tips, but the case stalled amid disappearing witnesses, many of whom were also killed in gang-related shootings, limited physical evidence, and a street code that forbade co-operation with police.
It was years later when Anderson’s uncle, Davis, started talking and, according to police, blew the case wide open again.