Metro Police today were interviewing nearly two dozen Southern California gang
members arrested in police raids in hopes of getting leads in their
investigation of rapper Tupac Shakur's murder in Las Vegas.
Compton, Calif., police, accompanied by two Metro homicide detectives, arrested
22 gang members early Wednesday, said Compton Police Chief Hourie Taylor.
The Los Angeles Times reported today that officers, clad in black masks,
helmets and bullet-resistant vests, set off flash-bang diversionary devices and
kicked in doors of houses in Compton, Long Beach, Lakewood and Paramount,
rousting people out of their beds in the predawn sweep.
Orlando Anderson, 22,
also was held for questioning by Metro in connection with the Sept. 7 drive-by
shooting of 25-year-old Shakur near the Strip, police said.
Early reports Wednesday that Anderson was a suspect in Shakur's death were
incorrect.
Anderson's family released a statement denying he is connected to Shakur's
killing.
"Tupac Shakur, the talented musical genius, fell at the hands of a violent
cruel drive-by shooter or shooters in Las Vegas. That's a fact. That person,
however, is not Orlando," the statement said.
Metro Lt. Larry Spinosa said Anderson was arrested on a 1994 murder
warrant out of California.
Spinosa said the Metro detectives had interviewed suspects Wednesday and were
continuing those interviews today.
The sweep was aimed at gang members implicated in as many as a dozen shootings
in the Compton area in which three people were killed, possibly in retaliation
for Shakur's slaying, Compton Police said.
"The operation was aimed at Crip and Blood factions in the area who have been
responsible for the crimes in Compton," Taylor said in a statement.
He released few details about Anderson, saying only that he was believed to be
a gang member.
"He was arrested exclusively for a homicide that happened in the city of
Compton," Taylor said.
Shakur, one of rap music's most notorious artists, died at University Medical
Center six days after he was shot four times, in the chest and
abdomen, following the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon boxing match at the MGM Grand.
Marion "Suge" Knight, 31, the head of Death Row Records, was driving
on East Flamingo Road at Koval Lane, a few blocks off the Las Vegas Strip,
when another car pulled up and opened fire on their car. Four men inside the
sped away in the late-model white Cadillac.
Wednesday's sweep also netted 19 handguns, seven rifles, about $17,000 in cash,
two bullet-resistant vests and about two pounds each of methamphetamine,
cocaine and marijuana, Taylor said.
October 03, 1996
Police to interview gang members about Shakur death
By Cathy Scott
LAS VEGAS SUN