Cathy Scott, the
author of the bestseller The Killing of Tupac Shakur, as well as the jaw-dropping
The Murder of Biggie Smalls is one ambitious lady. In addition to her teachings
(journalism at UNLV) and her column ("Crime and Punishment" for Las
Vegas CityLife), she even manages time to solve a murder or two. Her ambition
as a writer (get it) is to always tell you, the reader, the truth.
ALLHIPHOP.COM:
Who do you believe murdered Tupac Shakur?
CATHY SCOTT: It’s
pretty common knowledge and widely believed that the Crips killed him, specifically
the triggerman, Orlando Anderson.
ALLHIPHOP: Are
you 100% certain of that?
CATHY SCOTT: I’m
about as sure as you could be.
ALLHIPHOP: Why
do you think he did it?
CATHY SCOTT: I
don’t know if we’ll ever know why he did it. The motive is there obviously,
he got beat up by Tupac and others and went and got his buddies, it wasn’t difficult
to find Tupac that night, and shot him. Who knows if that’s what it was, because
he was roughed up or if it’s just some bad blood. It’s just street justice that’s
all it is, real simple.
ALLHIPHOP: I don’t
really want to cover too many details of the case that most of our readers already
know, so is there any new piece of info regarding the shooting that you can
divulge?
CATHY SCOTT: I’ve
included new interviews and that sort of thing in my book, but as far as anything
new, it’s really just the same thing, the cops have not pursued this case actively
for a very, very long time. And they’ve said themselves and I’ve got in on the
record and in my book that they know who killed him, but they say they didn’t
have the evidence to arrest him, and low and behold that person (Orlando Anderson)
is dead now isn’t he?
ALLHIPHOP: Yes,
unfortunately. Now, let’s address a couple of the more shocking claims surrounding
the shooting. First, Biggie Smalls is staying in a penthouse suite at the MGM
Grand Hotel under a false name the night of Tupac’s murder, fact or fiction?
CATHY SCOTT: Fiction.
Absolutely fiction. You’re talking about Chuck Philips’ article in the L.A.
Times right?
ALLHIPHOP: Yes.
What was your impression of that piece?
CATHY SCOTT: I
talked to a couple of gang cops there who’ve been in Compton for years and years
on the streets, and they said they told Chuck Philips before he came out with
the article, "you’re wrong, you’re dead wrong on this," and he came
out with the article anyway. They told him, "you are wrong Chuck,"
and he came out with it anyway. His source was some gangbanger, some little
kid who’s probably never left Compton and is probably laughing his head off
right now and saying, "look what I just did."
ALLHIPHOP: Here’s
another one of the more shocking claims surrounding the shooting, Suge Knight
is shot in the head, where the bullet remains logged to this day, fact or fiction?
CATHY SCOTT: Fact.
It’s actually shrapnel. He’s got some shrapnel at the base of his skull, top
of his neck.
ALLHIPHOP: So why
do you believe Nick Broomfield said that he was only struck by flying glass
in his Biggie & Tupac documentary?
CATHY SCOTT: I
don’t know why, he’s got Russell Poole for a source, a disgruntled cop who worked
on the investigation for about five minutes. You know the cops here don’t elaborate
about a lot and when something comes out on the details of a shooting, they’ll
tell you who was shot, and Suge Knight was one of those who was shot. And yeah,
he’s got some shrapnel stuck in his head.
ALLHIPHOP: I basically
wasn’t asking why he said what he said, but if he’s basing his claim on a medical
report, do you know for a fact that Suge was struck by something other than
glass?
CATHY SCOTT: It’s
based on the facts that came out early on in the case that were released from
the hospital. The hospital released facts on the shooting, as far as the victims,
which there were two victims, Suge and Tupac, and then the police initially
on the condition of the victims, and Suge was one of those victims, and they
gave out condition reports.
ALLHIPHOP: During
your research did you explore the theory that Suge orchestrated all of this?
CATHY SCOTT: Yes
I did explore it. There is absolutely not one shred of evidence that backs up
that theory. And you know how badly the cops want him, if he did have something
to do with Tupac’s shooting he’d be in prison for that right now, and not on
some stupid parole violation.
ALLHIPHOP: In the
Biggie & Tupac documentary, Nick Broomfield seems to suggest that Orlando
Anderson was merely a Lee Harvey Oswald-type patsy hired by either Suge or members
of Suge’s crew to just be there in the casino that night.
CATHY SCOTT: That’s
absolutely fictional, and let me get this straight, Suge is a Blood, and Orlando
is a Crip, yet Suge supposedly hired the Crips to do something for him, I mean
they’re a rival gang, it’s just all a bunch of nonsense. It’s just people who
don’t have anything better to do with their time and they’re trying to point
fingers at people and it just didn’t happen that way. It’s a very simple shooting,
it really is.
ALLHIPHOP: Also
from that film, Russell Poole says, "Suge’s people, people that Suge hired"
were used in the shooting. In any of your research did you ever come across
any other possible shooter than Orlando Anderson?
CATHY SCOTT: No.
Now, there were four people in the car, three others with Orlando, but all of
the evidence, the gang sources, it all points to Orlando being the shooter.
Plus, Orlando went back home to Compton and bragged about shooting him, plus
he had a .40-caliber Glock, the same type of gun believed to have been used
in the shooting, in his house, and they never did ballistics on that gun. Never
did ballistics tests on the gun to see if the Glock found in the house he lived
in matched up with the bullets found in Tupac’s body, which is very interesting.
And that could have confirmed it right then and there, but they never bothered
to do it.
ALLHIPHOP: Is there
anything other than circumstantial evidence to actually place Orlando Anderson
in that Cadillac, like an eyewitness?
CATHY SCOTT: Yeah,
an eyewitness was Yafeu Fula (Kadafi from the Outlawz), and he’s dead. He’s
the one who told police that he could identify the shooter and gave them a description
of the shooter, and then shortly after that was when Orlando Anderson’s name
came out, and then Yafeu Fula disappeared, and two months after Tupac was killed
he was killed himself.
ALLHIPHOP: Well,
I did an interview with the Outlawz a couple of years ago and they told me…
CATHY SCOTT: They’ll
tell you it has nothing to do with it, it was somebody’s cousin who killed Kadafi.
Yeah, right. They’re afraid!
ALLHIPHOP: According
to reports, there was a car full of women that were stopped on the left side
of Suge’s car when the shooting took place. Weren’t these women witnesses to
this crime?
CATHY SCOTT: They
actually were interviewed. I did ask that question of police and the Sergeant
on the case. They actually took those women to the station to be interviewed,
and they didn’t see anything. They were looking right at the car, I would imagine
they would have seen something, but the police told me they weren’t witnesses,
they just happened to be stopped talking to Suge and Tupac.
ALLHIPHOP: Were
there any other witnesses to the shooting besides Kadafi, who was in the vehicle
behind Suge and Tupac?
CATHY SCOTT: There
were lots of witnesses; he was the only willing witness. You had a caravan of
cars behind Suge and Tupac, and there were people in those cars. You’ve got
a witness in Frank Alexander, Tupac’s bodyguard.
ALLHIPHOP: I understand
he looked thru some photographs but couldn’t identify a shooter.
CATHY SCOTT: Yeah,
he couldn’t identify, that’s what they all say. Would you? (laughs)
ALLHIPHOP: It depends
(laughs) it depends.
CATHY SCOTT: I
don’t know, that’s what he said, and Frank’s a friend, he’s a good guy.
ALLHIPHOP: Do you
believe the Las Vegas Police Department gave up on this investigation at some
point?
CATHY SCOTT: Yes,
absolutely, they gave up early on.
ALLHIPHOP: Why
do you think that is?
CATHY SCOTT: It’s
bad for tourism.
ALLHIPHOP: (laughs)
CATHY SCOTT: That’s
what I’m told. I was told by police close to the investigation that a trial
with a black gang member would bring negative publicity to Las Vegas, and they
didn’t want it so they didn’t pursue it.
ALLHIPHOP: What
about the Feds, they were supposedly there that night, where were they?
CATHY SCOTT: Well
supposedly they had him under surveillance; they had Biggie Smalls under surveillance
too supposedly. The Feds don’t talk as you know. We’ll probably never know,
but that came out pretty early on.
ALLHIPHOP: So you
can’t confirm if they were somewhere near that caravan of cars that night?
CATHY SCOTT: Well
when they’re watching somebody they don’t let them go, they keep them under
surveillance, so they very well may have witnessed the murder. But at this point
that’s just hearsay. That came out pretty early because you know Suge was under
investigation and was under surveillance by the Feds, if that’s the case they
very well may have watched it that night.
ALLHIPHOP: Do you
know of any communication federal agents may have had with Las Vegas police?
CATHY SCOTT: They
don’t have a real close relationship; different law enforcement groups have
a tendency to keep information close to their chest, if they did give that information
it was never released by anybody else, and we were never privy to it.
ALLHIPHOP: In your
opinion, why didn’t the District Attorney bring charges against Orlando Anderson
at some point? Why didn’t they just take what they had and run with it?
CATHY SCOTT: I
don’t know, it’s a good question, because people have been convicted with less
circumstantial evidence. Orlando was here, he had no reason to be here, he didn’t
go to the fight, he was beat up by Tupac and his friends, including Suge, that
was motive, and a couple of hours later somebody people said looked like him
shot Tupac. In my mind they could have done it but they opted not to for probably
the same reason the police didn’t. The police didn’t file anything with the
District Attorney’s office, but there certainly could have been a grand jury
convened in this case. There was never even a grand jury convened to see if
there was enough evidence against Orlando. They basically just let it go, they
dropped the ball! They dropped the ball on purpose.
ALLHIPHOP: Isn’t
this all just an exercise in futility at this point? Only one occupant of that
Cadillac is still alive, Orlando Anderson (the shooter), Jerry Bonds (the driver),
and Bobby Finch are all dead.
CATHY SCOTT: Well
with Bobby Finch, there’s been talk that Bobby Finch was an iffy, he wasn’t
necessarily in the car. That came out early on that he may have been, but he’s
no longer believed to have been in the car.
ALLHIPHOP: Yeah,
I have a couple other names, Darnell Brim and Davion Brooks.
CATHY SCOTT: Yeah,
those guys are possibilities.
ALLHIPHOP: So basically
there are two people who were in that car who are alive today that could be
prosecuted, but do you believe anyone will ever stand trial for the murder of
Tupac Shakur?
CATHY SCOTT: No,
never. They don’t care; it’s not a crime they want to solve. They just want
it to go away and they don’t want anybody to ask any more questions.