Orlando Anderson
Encyclopedia : O : OR : ORL : Orlando Anderson
Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson (1974 - May 29, 1998) is the person usually cited as the murderer of the American rap-legend Tupac Shakur. The two were involved in a scuffle in the late hours of September 7, 1996, which many believe led Anderson to shoot Shakur five times later that night. Stories circulated that Anderson bragged about shooting Shakur, while he not surprisingly denied the allegation in actual interviews.
Authorities were slow to name any suspects in the Tupac Shakur murder. Instead, news outlets such as MTV first reported Orlando Anderson's name. Since then, law enforcement claimed that Anderson was a member of the Southside Compton Crips street gang of Compton, California (though Anderson's family has denied that he was a gang member), and that approximately three months before the murder of Shakur, Anderson and fellow gang members were involved in an altercation with a rival Compton gang, the Mob Piru Bloods. The particular Blood gang members involved were associated with Shakur's record label, Death Row Records, and as part of the altercation, Anderson allegedly stole a Death Row diamond cut medallion which one of the Bloods had been wearing. Authorities believe that this is what led to the scuffle between Shakur and Anderson on September 7, although Anderson always denied any involvement.
This story has since been contradicted several times, and is seen generally as a decoy device by those who believe Suge Knight conspired to kill Tupac Shakur. Shakur's bodyguard Frank Alexander says his life was threatened by associates of Death Row when he "refused to corroborate the story [of the chain-snatching]." This would imply that Anderson had killed Tupac for different reasons. This side of the story can be seen in Nick Broomfield's documentary Biggie & Tupac.
Anderson was at the VIBE Magazine party on March 9, 1997. That night, Biggie Smalls was gunned down.
On May 29, 1998, the only remaining link in the Tupac mystery was lost forever when Anderson was killed by Jerry Stone, a rival Crips gang member, after a dispute in a Los Angeles car wash.
References
- Broomfield, Nick. Biggie & Tupac: The Story Behind the Murder of Rap's Biggest Superstar (2002), documentary film. ASIN B0007TKG80.
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