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STATEMENT OF PROBABLE CAUSE
By the Las Vegas Police
Investigate several recent gang-related shootings. These incidents began on September 7, 1996 with the gang-related shooting of rapper Tupac Shakur and Marion "Suge" Knight of "Death Row Records" in Las Vegas, Nevada. "Death Row Records" is connected with the "MOB PIRU" gang in Compton and the "BOUNTY HUNTERS" gang in Los Angeles. Compton's "SOUTHSIDE CRIBPS" have had an ongoing rivalry with several past confrontations with this group. Informants have told police that "SOUTHSIDE CRIPS" were responsible for the Las Vegas shooting. Your affiant has personal knowledge that some "SOUTHSIDE CRIPS" members reside in Las Vegas. There is also an ongoing feud between Tupac Shakur and the "blood" related "Death Row Records" which employed "SOUTHSIDE CRIPS" gang members as security.
Since the September 7, 1996, Las Vegas shooting Compton has experienced the following incidents believed to be a direct result of the initial assault.
On September 9, 1996, approximately 14.58 hours, Darnell Brim (one od the leaders of the "SOUTHSIDE CRIPS") was shot several times in the back at 2430 East Alondra. During this dirveby shooting, a tan (10) year old bystander (Lakezia McNeese) was also struck by the gunfire ans is currently in critical condition. Witnesses provided police with the suspect description of a male black, approximately 20 years old, dark complexion, with bald hair style. The vehicle was described as a gray as a gray Honda type vehicle with tinted windows, chrome rims, and partial licence plate number 3KC----. In Cases #9635597 and #9635603, "SOUTHSIDE CRIP" member, Ian Salaveria aka "Lil Spank", was a witness.
On September 19, 1996, Gerode Mack aka "Mack" a "LEUDERS PARK PIRU" and Johnny Burgie were shot, in a driveby shooting, in front of 713 North Brandfield (a known "LEUDERS PARK PIRU" hangout). Male Black suspects in a blue Blazer were the suspects in this incident and believed to be from the "SOUTHSIDE CRIP" gang. Live rounds and -9mm spent casings were found at the scene (Cases #9635730 and #9635731).
On September 10, 1996, approximatly 1400 hours, Lieutenant Wright monitored a radio call of two gunshot vivtims at 713 North Bradfield Street. He then responded to the area frequented by the "SOUTHSIDE CRIPS". He saw a burgundy Blazer, Nevada license# 278GSM, occupied by four (4) male Black subjects at SOuth Park. The driver was David C. Keith of 2025 Travis Avenue, Las Vegas, Nevada, D.O.B. September 12, 1974. Three (3) subjects were known "SOUTHSIDE CRIP" gang members Willie Sloan, Avery Cody, and Katar Carroll. There were no weapons or contraband located. The vehicle was not the one used in the shooting. David Keith's driver's history revealed a Las Vegas address of 2109 Haveling Street.
On September 10, 1996, Gary Williams, (who is the brother of former "Death Row Record's" security person George Williams) was shot in a driveby shooting at Pine and Bradfield. The suspect was described as a male black driving a 1986-87 red Nissan, possibly from the "SOUTHSIDE CRIP" gang (Case #9635691).
On September 12, 1996, approximately 12.00 hours, your Affiant was contacted by los Angeles Country Sheriffs (Century Station's Operations Save Street) Deputy Paul Fournier. Deputy Fournier said that he spoke with an informant, who told him that "Keefee D's" nephew shot Tupac Shakur. The suspect is a "SOUTHSIDE CRIP", and the informant is with the "LEUDERS PARK PIRU", "MOB PIRU", "ELM LANE PIRU", and DEATH ROW RECORDS fraction.
On September 12, 1996, approximately 14.00 hours, I made contact with Sergant Baker's second CRI. The CRI confirmed Orlando Anderson was "Keefee D's" (Keith Davis'') nephew.
On September 12, 1996, approximately 16.30 hours, Officer E. Aquirre, Deputy Fournier, and your Affiant met with the LASO Deputy's informant (referenced ac CRI #3). Your Affiant asked CRI #3 to provide information on our recent shootings. The CRI stated that right now in Compton, the "SOUTHSIDE CRIPS" are aligning with the "NEIGHBORHOOD CRIS", "KELLY PARK CRIPS", and "ATLANTIC DRIVE CRIPS" against "MOB PIRUS", "LEUDER PARK PIRUS", and "ELM LANE PIRUS". These alliances are a diredt result of the Las Vegas shooting of Tupac Shakur and Marion "Suge" Knight. The CRI stated that the "Piru" groups are aligned with "Death Row Records". Approximately 1-1/2 to 2 months ago, "Death Row Records''" affiliate Travon Lane (aka Tray) was in the "Foot Locker Store" in the Lakewood Mall, with other "MOB PIRUS", Kevin Woods aka "K.W." and Maurice Combs aka "Lil Mo". Lane aka "Tray" was confronted by 7-8 "SOUTHSIDE CRIPS". They got into a fight and the "SOUTHSIDE CRIP" gang members took "Tray's" "Death Row" necklace.
On September 7, 1996, after the "Mike Tyson Fight" at the MGM Hotel in Las Vegas, there was a large entourage of "Death Row Records" people and some "Blood" gang members. The entourage had seen several "SOUTHSIDE CRIP" people at the fight. The "Death Row Records" people observed a "SOUTHSIDE CRIP" gang member alone in the lobby. "Tray" recognized the "SOUTHSIDE CRIP" member to be one of the people who took his "Death Row" chain at lakewood Mall and pointed him out to Tupac Shakur (who had a fresh "MOB" tatto on his arm). Shakur confronted the "SOUTHSIDE CRIP" member, saying "you from the South?" and beguan fighting him. Several of the other bloods also began striking the "SOUTHSIDE CRIP". The altercation was broken up by security, and the "Death Row Records''" poeple left. The "Death Row Records''" people were caravaning in several vehicles enroute the "662 Club". "Suge" and Tupac were in the first vehicle. Some of their people in the vehicles that followed were "Buntry" (Alton MacDonald), "Neckbone" (Roger Williams), "Hen Dog" (Henry Smith), "Lil Wack 2" (Allen Jordan), "Tray" (Travon Lane)--all "MOB PIRUS"--and Tupac's security person, Frank. The entourage stopped for a red light at Flamingo and Las Vegas Boulevard, when a Cadillac pulled up next to Tupac and "Suge". There were at least two people in the Cadillac. The passenger got out "talking shit" and pulled a gun and began shooting, hitting Tupac and "Suge". The suspects in the Cadillac left and were thought to be caught by the police, by the "Death Row Records" personnel. The "PIRU" and "Death Row Records" people met at the "662 Club" (The number 662 coincide with letters on the telephone to spell MOB) after the shooting. "Timmy-Ru" (Tim MacDonald), "Mob James" (James MacDonald), "Tray". and others were present. "Tray" was telling everyone that the shooter was the same person they jumped at the "MGM". "Tray" said that he knew the person ans that the shooter was "Keffee D's" (Keith Davis) nephew from "SOUTHSIDE CRIPS". The gang members were saying "It's on" (gang war) when we get back to Compton (with "SSC"). Several of the gang members left Las Vegas Saturday and Sunday amd came back to Compton.
On Sunday afternoon on September 9, 1996, the following gang members met at Leuders Park to discuss retaliation against "S.S.C": "MOB PIRUS"--"S-Ru" (Eugene-19 years old), "Mikey Ru" (Michael Payne), Khalif Perkins, aka "Black", "Bear"-21 years old, "Mar-Ru" (Marvin-20 years old); "LEUDERS PARK PIRUS"--"O.G. Money" (Lamont Akens), "C.K. Vell" (Lavell McAdory), "Ace" (Shawn Verwtte), "Hack" (Ephram Burgie), "Mack" (George Mack), "White Boy" (Danny Patton), "Lil Scar", male Black 18 years, "Big Scar"-male Black 24 years, "T-Spoon" (Brandon Jones), and "Spook" aka "Lil Roach" (Posaun Gant); "ELM LANE PIRUS"--"Spooky-Ru" (Anthony Hardiman), "Lil Vent Dog" (Harold Wilson), "Tron" (Detron Turner), "O.G. Chism"--in a wheel chair--(David Chism) and "Lu Dog" (Lucius Duplessis). "O.G. Money" (Lamont Akens), "C.K. Vell" (Lavell McAdory), "Spook" (Rosaum Gant) and "Ace" (Shawn Verrette) said that they were down with "PIRU", Kory Wilson aka "Kory" a "FRUITTOWN PIRU", Robert Howell aka "Lil Rooster" a "FRUITTOWN PIRU", and Anthony Brown aka "Lil Hob" a "CEDAR BLOCK PIRU". Officer Idlebird field interviewed "ELM LANE PIRU" member Brandon Wright aka Brandon Jones (Lowdown) at the park. On September 13, 1996, approximately 22.25 hours, Tyrone Libscomb and David McKulin were shot at 802 South Ward. A vehicle and house were struck by the gunfire. Casings (.45 calibre) were found at the scene, (Cases# 9636177, 9636164, 9636186 and 9636178). Suspects in this case and the next detailed case are believed to possibly be the six (6) "BLOOD" gang members field interviewed by Officers Clark and Idlebird at Leuders Park.
On September 14, 1996, approximately 17.00 hours, Officer R. Richardson was contacted by an informant who didn''t wish to be identified. The informant said that "Baby Lane" (Orlando Anderson) from "SOUTHSIDE CRIPS" killed Tupac. "Baby Lane is Orlando Anderson.
On September 16, 1996, approximately 12.00 hours, Deputy Paul Fournier and Deputy Mike Caouette, and your Affiant met with Las Vegas Police Department's Homicide Division. We contacted Sergant Kevin Manning, Detectives Brent Becker and Mike Frants. We exchanged information on the Tupac Shakur homicide and our recent shootings and homicides. We viewed a videotape of the assault--on a male Black, who I recognized to be Orlando Anderson aka "Baby Lane"--by Tupac Shakur, Marion "Suge" Knight, and other "Death Row Records" people. The tape was of the events after the Mike Thyson Fight at the "MGM" Hotel. Las Vegas Police Department advised that a newer model Cadillac possibly followed the entourage of vehicles after the fight, and was the vehicle used by the suspect(s) who shot Tupac Shakur. Las Vegas Police Department advised that the vehicle contained 2-4 mal Black occupantc. They have received several anonymous calls, mostly saying "Baby Lane" shot Tupac. They have also received calls saying Darnell Brim, Bobby Finch, and Davion Brooks were also in the vehicle with "Baby Lane". Las Vegas Police Department said that they had received a few more calls saying that Terrence Brown aka "T-Brown" a "SOUTSIDE CRIP" and Davion Brooks were in the car with "Baby Lane". Las Vegas Police Department had a Las Vegas adress on Davion Brooks. (The address was subsequently checked by Las Vegas Police Department. Brooks had moved the first week of September 1996. The apartment leasee was David Keith ake "Tank", an employee of the "MGM" Hotel in Las Vegas, and the same person field interviewed after a Compton shooting on September 10, 1996. Las Vegas Police Department's records revealed Keith was arrested for a warrant on September 11, 1996 in Las Vegas). The Nevada license# 278GSM (on the vehicle drive by David Keith in Compton) came back to 2109 Haveling Street, Las Vegas, Nevada. This is the same address as the tag found on the duffel bag at 1315 East Glencoe, suspected of being used to bring the guns inside. Las Vegas Police Department examined the box of .40
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Tupac Shakur, incarcerated before his birth and murdered before his 26th birthday, spent much of his too-short life outside the law. His tattoos proclaimed his philosophy: "Outlaw" on his left forearm, "Thug Life" across his torso. His death has changed all that.
Shakur lives on in the staid world of courtrooms and counter suits, law offices and legal papers. His posthumous alter ego is a white Manhattan attorney - Richard Fischbein, co-executor of the Shakur estate. Even Shakur's unreleased music - more than 150 songs, valued at $100 million - is tied up in a court battle. Fischbein says he expects more "vultures" to "come out of the woodwork." "Tupac has an estate," Fischbein explains bluntly. "He's dead. People see a payday." Fischbein and Afeni Shakur, who gave birth to the slain rapper one month after her acquittal in a 1971 conspiracy trial, became co-executors on Oct. 23, 1996. Since then, the flow of lawsuits has been as hard and relentless as Tupac's lyrics:
A $10 million lawsuit by C. DeLores Tucker, a virulent opponent of gangsta rap. Tucker, who once labeled Shakur's music "pornographic smut," claimed lyrics on Tupac's 5 million-selling album "All Eyez on Me" were so demeaning that it affected her sex life. Two songs derisively mentioned Tucker by name. On one, "How Do U Want It," Shakur rapped: "DeLores Tucker, you'se a motherfucker/Instead of trying to help a nigga, you destroy a brother." Tucker did not returns calls to her Washington office. But in her lawsuit, she alleged Shakur had caused her "great humiliation, mental pain and suffering" - and damaged her sexual relationship with her husband, William.
A November 1996 court award of $16.6 million to Jacquelyn McNealey, who was shot and partially paralyzed at a 1993 Shakur concert in Pine Bluff, Ark. Fischbein is vigorously trying to set aside this judgment; the estate's Arkansas court papers carried the names of 17 attorneys, and asserted that Shakur was never even notified of this lawsuit.
A $7.1 million suit by Death Row Records, demanding reimbursement for cash advances that Shakur allegedly used for cars, houses, jewelry and other expenses. The estate filed a 41- page counter suit, accusing Death Row of looting $50 million from Shakur to maintain the extravagant lifestyles of label head Marion "Suge" Knight and other executives. More important than cash is control of at least two unreleased Shakur CDs and 152 additional unreleased songs. Death Row currently has custody of the master tapes. A Death Row spokesman and label attorney David Kenner both declined to comment on the legal fight; Knight is serving a nine-year jail term on a probation violation.
A successful lawsuit by the estate to gain merchandising rights to Shakur's image. Previously, it received nothing from the lucrative sales of Shakur T-shirts, hats and other memorabilia. There remain a handful of "smaller, irrelevant" lawsuits - including a libel suit stemming from another lyric on Shakur's last album, "The Don Killuminati" - that are unresolved, Fischbein acknowledges. What the plaintiffs lined up at the Tupac trough may not know is that the rapper, whose last two albums sold more than 8 million copies, left very little behind. Tupac's bank account contained $150,000 when he died at 4:03 p.m. on Sept. 13, 1996, six days after he was shot on the Las Vegas strip. "He owned no real estate," the estate claimed in court papers. "He owned no stocks and bonds. He owned two cars." Where was the money? The estate's lawsuit against Death Row alleges the label should have provided him with $12 million royalties on the album "All Eyez on Me" and a $5 million advance on his next album. Instead, with Shakur locked up by a handwritten three-page contract that he''d signed in prison, Death Row refused to provide Shakur with any financial accounting, the estate says. Even worse, Death Row allegedly charged Shakur for items that the rapper never owned or knew about: $115,000 for jewelry, $120,000 in rent for a Malibu home, $23,857 for Porsche repairs. Shakur didn''t own a Porsche; Knight did. While Fischbein is bemused by some of the lawsuits - "C. DeLores Tucker? Who ever expected that?" - he takes the estate very seriously. And he expects the battles to rage for years. Afeni Shakur, he says, is "very, very tough and single-minded.", "She never expected her son to die before she did," Fischbein says. "She's never going to give in on any of this stuff- never. From her point of view, this could go on forever."
The latest to file suit: Orlando Anderson, a reputed gang member who was once a suspect in the rapper's shooting death in Las Vegas last September. Anderson has filed a lawsuit alleging that Shakur and several Death Row Records employees assaulted him in the lobby of Las Vegas's MGM Grand Hotel just hours before the best-selling rapper was shot. No arrests have been made in Shakur's death, and police said witnesses to the drive-by have been uncooperative. But Anderson will have to wait in line.
The DeLores Tucker case has since been dismissed by a judge who ruled the case had no merit and therefore threw it out. Chalk one up for the home team. Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson has since been murdered, the lawyer and family is continuing on with the suit (can you say GREED), and the cops have charged the man they believe is responsible unlike they did in Tupac's case. The suit from the paralyzed woman has been settled in the lower hundred thousand dollar range and she has now been paid from the promoter, the arena, and Tupac's estate (Tupac's estate didn''t end up paying as the decision was later overruled). How the Death Row suit is going, I don''t know. Neither do I know how THEY have the nerve to sue besides it being a strategy by the lawyers to get Afeni to drop her suit against them.
Tupac's Father Cut Out of Inheritance A contentious lawsuit filed by the rapper's father, William Garland, seeking 50 percent of Tupac's estate. Afeni Shakur angrily charged that Garland was a gold-digger who ignored his son for 18 years; Garland blamed her nomadic lifestyle for making it impossible to find Tupac. "I''m the only person in here who lost somebody," Ms. Shakur snapped in early August. "He don''t even know my son's birthday." Garland's lawyer, Leonard Birdsong, rips Ms. Shakur as "an egomaniac" upset by publicity for Tupac's father. He also mentions her past crack addiction and alcohol problems; Tupac had said those woes forced him to leave his mother's house at age 17. Fischbein dismisses Garland as "a deadbeat dad" who gave his son "$500 and a bag of peanuts over the course of his life." Birdsong indignantly charges Fischbein with "rewriting history to vilify my client." Garland only filed suit after Ms. Shakur twice submitted legal papers saying Tupac's father was dead, Garland says. This parental struggle could give birth to another lawsuit. If he wins, Garland wants to be named the estate's co-executor.
The Result - William Garland, Tupac Shakur's father, was cut out of his son's estate Tuesday after a judge decided that his contributions to the rapper's upbringing were "minuscule." Garland, a trucker living in New Jersey, wanted half of Shakur's multimillion-dollar estate, but his mother, Afeni, claimed that he was absent for the majority of Tupac's upbringing. "This is a big defeat for deadbeat dads," attorney Richard Fischbein, who co-administrates the Shakur estate, said. "Being the designated sperm isn''t enough." Testimony revealed that Garland had actually only seen Tupac for fifteen of his twenty-five years, and that his actual contributions to young Tupac's welfare included about $820, a bag of peanuts, and a ticket to the film Rollerball. His lawyer, Michael Reinis, is hoping to appeal, saying that the decision was based upon a law that came into effect twenty years after Shakur's birth.
Tupac's Estate Sued by Jeweler A Rodeo Drive jeweler has leveled a $93,000 lawsuit against the estate of the late Tupac Shakur, alleging that the rapper custom ordered more than $80,000 worth of jewelry, but died before he could pay for it. In a suit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Tuesday, R&,S Antiques say Shakur bought a white gold bracelet encrusted with diamonds for $38,000, as well as a gold chain to go with a Versace medallion for another $45,000, which was sent to Germany to be lengthened. Before it arrived back in the U.S., however, Shakur was shot in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996. He died six days later, and the jewelry was put into a safe and never paid for. The suit names Shakur's mother, Afeni, as well as a New York attorney, Richard S. Fischbein, as defendants.
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Official Reports on Tupac
