THE NEW YORK SHOOTING

After Tupac was murdered in Las Vegas, few people 
paid attention to the shooting which occurred 
in 1994 at a Times Square recording studio. This 
was never fully explained, even by Tupac, but 
police ruled it a robbery attempt of Tupac's 
thousands of dollars in gold. There are still many 
questions which need to be answered especially 
concerning the beef between Tupac and Bad Boy 
records since Tupac claimed they set the 1994 
shooting up. The following story reports everything 
which I have learned about the shooting. My sources 
are very credible but keep in mind that I have no 
hard evidence to back up my claims. Please feel 
free to judge for yourself whether what I say 
makes sense or not.

First we must go back to November 30th, 1994. At 
12:20 a.m., Tupac and his entourage of three men, 
including "Stretch" Walker of the Live Squad who 
was a close friend and his manager Freddie Moore, 
enter the building. One black male sits on a desk 
in the entranceway of the office building where 
the Quad is located. The man gets up from the desk 
as two other men walk through the door. Little 
Caeser had yelled down to Tupac's crew from the 
top of the recording studio so Tupac knew Biggie 
was there and felt safe thinking that these men 
were his security. The three men start to follow 
Tupac's entourage until they get to the elevators. 
It is at this point that they draw their guns and 
yell, "Give up the jewelry, and get on the floor!
" Tupac's entourage quickly get on the floor but 
Tupac curses the gunmen and goes for one of the 
guns. In the struggle, Tupac is shot five times 
while his manager is hit once. The robbers then 
get off with $40,000 in jewelry. Moore gives chase to 
the robbers but collapses next door. Tupac is dragged 
into the elevator and taken upstairs where there are 
several well known individuals including Biggie Smalls 
and Sean "Puffy" Combs. Tupac would later describe 
the scene as very strange. He said that nobody even 
got up to help him but only stared at him as if they 
were surprised he was alive. Tupac said that the only 
person showing any emotion was Little Shawn who 
was crying. Later Tupac would mimic this scene in 
a rare video in which he walks from the elevator 
covered with blood as Biggie begs for his 
life blaming Puffy for the set up. This was 
perhaps Tupac's way of getting the truth to his 
fans. As he lay riddled with bullets, Tupac 
reportedly had someone roll him a joint and 
then he made a call to his girlfriend who called 
his mother and then he called 911.


Officers arrived on the scene soon after the 
call was placed. When officers arrived, Tupac 
was greeted by the same officers which had 
arrested and testified against him in the sexual 
assault trial. This would lead many to believe 
that the police may have had something to do 
with it or the rape victim was seeking revenge 
but these would apparently turn out to be false 
accusations. Tupac had been shot five times throughout 
his body including two shots to the head. Miraculously 
he survived and was loaded into the ambulance where one 
of the greatest pictures of him ever was taken. Covered 
in blood and bandages, he flips the photographer off. 
He is rushed to the Bellevue trauma department 
where he is rushed into surgery. To everyone's 
surprise, Tupac later checks out less than three 
hours after his surgery claiming that he fears for 
his life. 

The next day, Tupac makes a surprise appearance in 
a Manhattan courtroom in anticipation of the verdict 
in his sexual assault trial. He is surrounded by 
Nation of Islam bodyguards and is in a wheelchair. 
Although the verdict comes back guilty of a lesser 
offense, Tupac is rallied around by friends Jasmine Guy 
and Mickey Rourke. He remained free on $25,000 bail.


Soon after he was sentenced to serve time on Riker's 
Island. Very little happened while he was in prison 
although he would reveal later that people in prison 
were telling him that it was Biggie's boy who shot him. 
Tupac's cousin even witnessed the shooters bragging 
that they had just shot him. These details were 
revealed by Tupac in one of his last interviews with 
KMEL. Almost one year later, Tupac was freed on bail 
pending appeal by Marion "Suge" Knight of Death Row 
records in exchange for a three album deal with 
Death Row.

As soon as Tupac got to California, Tabitha Soren 
of MTV met with him for an interview. In that 
interview, Tupac looked deeply troubled when 
asked about the shooting as if he were scared 
to give too many details to the public out of fear
for another attempt on his life. His confidence seemed 
to build up after that interview as he went on to 
point the finger at Bad Boy records as being 
responsible for the shooting. Puffy would later 
say that they had nothing to do with the 
shooting and that Tupac knew who shot him. It 
seems obvious that it was an inside job based on 
the fact that the robbers knew where he would be. 
Also, the robbers went right after Tupac rather than 
deal with Stretch who was much bigger. Tupac would 
later have a falling out with Stretch as Stretch 
became close with Bad Boy and had possibly known of the 
setup. Stretch was later found murdered execution 
style in Jamaica, Queens (NYC) exactly one year 
to the day after Tupac was shot in New York. Is that 
just another coincidence? I have heard that Stretch had 
been warned that his life was in danger, but he 
disregarded these warnings.



Tupac tells a lot of things in the song 
"Against All Odds" on the Makaveli album. 
When he says, "And that nigga that was down with me/ 
Restin' dead/ Switched sides, guess his new 
friends wanted him dead/ Probably was murdered 
for the shit that I said", he is talking about 
Stretch. When he says, "Puffy's gettin' robbed 
like a bitch/ To hide that fact, he did some shit 
he shouldn't did/ So now he's ridin' for 
that", he is talking about Puffy being involved 
in the set up and being robbed by the financers 
of Bad Boy. Perhaps he wasn't robbed as much if 
he helped set Tupac up. That would explain Puffy 
being more involved while Biggie just knew about 
the set up. There is another part of the 
song which possibly relates to the set up. When 
he says, "And did I mention/ Promised a payback, 
Jimmy Henchman/ In due time/ I knew you bitch 
niggas was listening/ The world is mine/ Set me up/ 
Wet me up/ Niggas stuck me up/ Heard the guns bust/ 
But you tricks never shut me up" he could either be 
implicating Henchmen Management/Entertainment in 
the shooting or the verse is split and he is just 
talking about another beef he had with them. Interpret 
how you want, but Tupac was telling the truth when 
he said "This be the realest shit I ever wrote."

All signs pointed to Bad Boy at least knowing 
before hand of the shooting. Tupac never said 
Bad Boy was directly responsible, only that 
they "set him up." He would later say that he 
had met the shooter because he was a friend of 
Biggie's and Biggie had warned Tupac not to 
mess with him. When Tupac said that Bad Boy 
"set him up", he meant that they didn't warn 
him of the coming attack and possibly provided 
info about his location that night. Tupac had 
also said that he kept getting calls asking 
why he wasn't at the studio yet because he 
was delayed an hour trying to get some weed. 
Why would Bad Boy have been so concerned 
about getting him to the studio that late? 
It seems very obvious they were in on it.

Now, that all the details are laid out, the new 
question becomes what was the motive if it wasn't 
just a routine robbery? This question must 
be asked because why would Bad Boy set Tupac 
up for a $40,000 robbery by common thieves. 
That wouldn't make sense at all since they were 
all friends at the time. There was a more powerful 
party at work here, not just common thieves, who 
were powerful enough to force Puffy and Biggie 
to cooperate out of fear. This is where things 
get really interesting.

The story is that Tupac was shot because of some 
dealings with some shady people in New York known 
as the "Black Mafia." These people, it is 
rumored, financed Bad Boy records. Tupac met some 
of these people in New York, including the mysterious 
Trevor aka King Tut who later admitted to 
some undercover cops that he had been involved 
in the shooting and it was because Tupac "needed 
to be disciplined."  Who paid for Tut's legal 
bills?  None other than Puffy who still denies it.  
It is said that these "Black Mafia" characters 
demanded that Tupac sign on to Bad Boy 
records since Bad Boy still really wasn't on 
the scene and needed an artist like Tupac but 
Tupac refused the demands. Tupac was supposed to 
die that night. This was punishment for saying no. 
If you remember Tupac, in his first interview 
after being shot, said in Vibe that people 
were trying to kill him. These were those people. 
That is another reason why Tupac went to Death Row, 
because Suge could provide the protection 
he needed. Puffy played the real role in this 
shooting, although Biggie knew about it. Puffy 
didn't order the shooting, he however, helped set 
up Tupac. Also, if you recall, Tupac never said 
Puffy did it, he said he was set up by Puffy.

There is also another possibility behind the 
motive of the shooting which is different from 
punishing Tupac for not signing with Bad Boy.   
After the rape case started, Tupac blamed Jacques 
Agnant a.k.a. Haitain Jack for setting him up in 
the trial.  This was suspicious because Tupac 
got the absolute maximum penalty for the charges 
he was found guilty of while Agnant received 
like 3 months suspended sentence and he was 
rumored to be a federal informant which is why 
Pac called him a snitch.  

In the N.Y. Daily News, in an article by a 
reporter who was talking about the rape case, 
the reporter, Pac and Mickey Rourke were in a 
restaurant and Pac dissed Jack in the article.  
In Vibe, Pac said that Nigel (Haitain Jack) 
introduced him to Booker(Jimmy Henchmen) and that 
Jimmy knew somebody that Pac had major beef with 
meaning Jack and Trevor aka Walter (King Tut) Johnson.  
King Tut was the one that Tupac said, in 
the interview with Tech and Sway on KMEL, 
that a week before he was shot Tut walked in with 
Biggie and Biggie told Pac not to fuck with him.  So 
right there, you can see that Biggie knew the 
shooter quite well. Also, in that jail interview, 
Pac was asked if the shooters were both black 
men and Pac said that they were black men in their 
thirties.  Both King Tut and Jack were both in their 
thirties.   They both shot him up and it was Jimmy 
Henchman that called him up. So this other motive 
is that King Tut shot Pac because he "needed to 
be disciplined" for dissing Jack in that article 
because he was Tut's homeboy.

There were still a few issues which didn't seem 
to fit. Originally, Pac thought that the police 
had set him up.  He kind of abandoned that 
accusation but here is a quote about the scene 
after the shooting:"Officers arrived on the scene 
soon after the call was placed. When officers 
arrived, Tupac was greeted by the same officers 
which hadarrested and testified against him in 
the sexual assault trial. Thiswould lead many 
to believe that the police may have had something 
to dowith it or the rape victim was seeking revenge 
but these wouldapparently turn out to be false 
accusations."

This seems more than coincedence because New York 
City has a special case squad located in the 
13th precent. The detectives in this squal handle 
all high profile cases within NYC. They would have 
been called to the scene immediately after confirmation 
that this was a Tupac related incident.  But who 
shows up, the same officers that arrested Pac.  
Coincedence or conspiracy?

This is the story of the 1994 shooting in New York 
City. Think of it what you will but realize that 
there is more to the music business than the ordinary 
media will show. With all the details emerging from this 
shooting nearly 2 and a half years later, we must ask 
ourselves if the shooting in Las Vegas was just 
another jewelry robbery or if it was the complex 
situation like that which surrounded the 1994 
shooting. Keep in mind that Tupac was shot in 1994 
because he didn't sign a contract therefore not 
making money for Bad Boy and it was covered up 
with the front of a robbery. Now we must ask, was 
Tupac shot in Las Vegas in 1996 because his 
contract was over with Death Row and it was covered 
up with the medallion robbery story. Did history 
repeat itself? You be the judge.