Shakur mourned, body cremated

September 18, 1996

Shakur mourned, body cremated

By Cathy Scott
LAS VEGAS SUN and the Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The family of Tupac Shakur had his remains cremated over the weekend and held their own private services for the slain rapper, who died six days after he was shot near the Las Vegas Strip.

“The family had private services Saturday and it was the wishes of the family that nothing be done. It’s done and over with. There will be nothing more. The family doesn’t want us to say anything else,” said a Davis Funeral Home spokeswoman.

Shakur, 25, died Friday afternoon, six days after a car-to-car shooting of him and Marion “Suge” Knight, 31, chairman of Los Angeles-based Death Row Records, after the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon heavyweight boxing match.

A white Cadillac with four men inside pulled up next to them on East Flamingo Road at Koval Lane and a gunman emptied a semiautomatic pistol into the passenger side of the car, hitting Shakur four times in the chest and abdomen.

Metro Police believe Shakur was the target. Knight was slightly injured from bullet fragments.

Shakur, known as 2Pac, was pronounced dead at 4:03 p.m. Friday at University Medical Center. He died of respiratory failure and cardiopulmonary arrest, a hospital spokesman said. An autopsy was performed Friday night.

Police continue to investigate the shooting that left Knight with minor injuries, but have few clues.

Friends grieving at the hospital suggested that they know who murdered him.

One man, a Las Vegas resident who said he goes by the name of Marcos, met Shakur more than a year ago when Shakur was filming his most recent music video.

“I watched him make the whole thing,” Marcos said.

He last talked with Shakur Saturday night after the Tyson-Seldon fight. Shakur offered to give him a ride to Club 662, where the entourage was headed, Marcos said.

“I said, ‘I’ll meet you there, man.’ We never made it.”

Shakur was scheduled to attend a charity event at the club to raise money to keep children away from violence. Shakur was shot before he could attend the event.

Witnesses to the shooting, including Knight, have frustrated police because they have provided few details on the suspects and possible motives.

“Nobody wants to help the police,” Marcos said. “What for? What are they going to do? I’m just saying that whoever did this is going to get found. The people who find him, I don’t know what they’ll do.”

A family friend at the hospital said, “You’re not going to hear any talk about retaliation here. That’ll come later.”

Police still have few clues leading to the gunman, Sgt. Kevin Manning said. Manning said today he had no new information.

Marcos, when asked if the assailants would eventually leak information that they shot Shakur, said, “They already have.”

He declined to say where the purported suspects live, only that “they’re not from Las Vegas.”

The 25-year-old rapper was mourned during a memorial service Sunday at his boyhood church in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Death Row Records, which produced his music, said a memorial service would be announced later.

“Suge Knight and the entire Death Row Records family are saddened by the passing of our brother and star rap recording artist Tupac Amaru Shakur,” the company said in a statement.

It called Shakur “a true warrior who vigorously fought for his life.”

It was the second time Shakur had been gunned down in less than two years. In November 1994 he was shot five times during an apparent robbery in the lobby of a Manhattan recording studio.

Arrested repeatedly in recent years, he was released last year on bail pending appeal after serving eight months in a New York prison for sex abuse.

The Las Vegas attackers got away. Knight, with three lawyers, talked to investigators four days after the shooting but was of no help, police said.

There had been trouble ealier. Shakur and associates were in a fight outside a Las Vegas hotel just before the shooting. And at the recent MTV awards in New York, police broke up a confrontation between Shakur’s entourage and six other men. But then there always seemed to be something brewing.

Shakur was up-front about his troubled life in the 1995 release “Me Against The World,” a multi-million-selling album that contained the ominously titled tracks “If I Die 2Nite” and “Death Around The Corner.”

“It ain’t easy being me – will I see the penitentiary, or will I stay free?” Shakur rapped on the album, which produced the Grammy-nominated “Dear Mama” and standout singles “So Many Tears” and “Temptations.”

Yet Shakur was not just the fury, expletives and anger of songs like “F— the World.” He could be poignant (“It was hell hugging on my mama from a jail cell”) and both sympathetic and critical of young black men trying to become “gangstas” (“You could be a f—— accountant, not a dope dealer, you know what I’m saying”).

The Las Vegas shooting occurred as Shakur’s fourth solo album, “All Eyez on Me,” remained on the charts, with some 5 million copies sold. The song “How Do You Want It – California Love” was a top 20 single on Billboard magazine’s charts.

The rapper had a more hopeful outlook on “All Eyez.” In a comment released by his label, Shakur had described the making of the album: “I just said what I wanted to say, and it liberated me. I let go of the anger.”

A fledgling actor, Shakur had recently completed filming a role as a detective for the Orion picture “Gang Related.” He previously appeared in “Above The Rim” in 1994; with Janet Jackson in John Singleton’s 1993 release “Poetic Justice;” and in the 1992 Earnest Dickerson film “Juice.”

Tupac Amaru Shakur was born in 1971 in the Bronx. He moved to Baltimore to attend its High School for the Performing Arts, where he began writing rap. He then moved to Marin City, Calif., near Oakland, and continued to write and record.

As a member of the Grammy-nominated group Digital Underground he appeared in 1991 on the track “Same Song” from “This is an EP Release” and on the album “Sons Of The P.”

That same year Shakur achieved individual recognition with the album “2Pacalypse Now,” which spawned the successful singles “Trapped” and “Brenda’s Got A Baby.”

The album, with references to police officers being killed, drew notoriety when a lawyer claimed a man accused of killing a Texas trooper had been riled up by the record. Then-Vice President Dan Quayle targeted “2Pacalypse Now” in his 1992 battle with Hollywood over traditional values.

Shakur followed up in 1993 with the strong selling album “Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z…,” which produced the singles “I Get Around,” “Keep Ya Head Up,” and “Papa’z Song.” That year he was nominated for an American Music Award as best new rap hip hop artist.

The next year he appeared with Thug Life on the “Above The Rim” soundtrack and on the group’s album “Volume 1.” In a photo on the album liner he framed his face between his two extended middle fingers.

While in prison last year he indicated he was rethinking his lifestyle.

“Thug Life to me is dead. If it’s real, let somebody else represent it, because I’m tired of it,” Shakur told Vibe magazine. “I represented it too much. I was Thug Life.”

The Associated Press also contributed to this story.