Courtesy: Lions Film Entertainment
Biggie & Tupac deaths are as mysterious and conspiracy theory riddled as those of Marilyn Monroe and J.F.K. Do we know anymore now than we did the days they were murdered?
3 things we’ve learned since 2002 about the murders of Biggie & Tupac:
1) L.A. Police Department
The film claims that — in cahoots with Suge Knight because of a $25,000 bounty he put on Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. Biggie Smalls — the Los Angeles Police department killed Biggie. The family of Biggie sued the City of Los Angeles for $500 million, but the lawsuit was dismissed in 2010.
While the dismissal of the lawsuit does not necessarily mean Biggie wasn’t murdered by the L.A.P.D., it does clarify whether or not the claims made in the film are supported by enough evidence to convict those involved, the answer being no.
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2) Suge Knight
The film claims that Suge Knight killed Tupac Shakur because Shakur was going to leave Deathrow Records and being producing his own music. According to the film, in order to divert attention away from himself and onto someone from Biggie Smalls’ gang — Biggie and Tupac had a beef going back a decade — Knight killed Biggie, then suggested it was in retaliation to the Tupac murder.
Both the Biggie & Tupac director Nick Broomfield and Rolling Stones writer Randall Sullivan believe this to be the case. However, Chuck Stevens of the Times did his own independent investigation of the two murders and came to the conclusion that Tupac was killed by a member of a Compton gang called the Southside Crips named Orlando Anderson in retaliation for a beating Tupac had given him a few hours earlier.
However, the police interviewed and released Anderson shortly after the murder concluding that he didn’t do it. In other words, the police found Anderson’s alibi believable, meaning their actions do not contradict the Biggie & Tupac film nor Sullivan’s article, Who Killed Tupac Shakur? conclusion that Knight did it.
3) Neither Case Closed
While there are two different theories, neither seems to have enough support for either murder cases to be closed. There have been claims by retired L.A. Police detectives that Darnell ”Poochie” Bolton killed Biggie in addition to the suggestion that Orlando Anderson killed Tupac, but neither man has been tried, even arrested in regard to the murders.
In 2011, the FBI released a 200 page report detailing their attempt to solve the two murders. The report showed that on-duty officers that responded to the murder of Biggie were also Deathrow Records employees, Suge Knight’s production company, who moon-lighted as security guards.
In other words, while there is no proof that Knight killed Biggie and Tupac, there is considerable circumstantial evidence to link him to their deaths.
