The call came in on the radio just after 11:15 p.m.: Shots had been fired near the intersection of Flamingo and Koval, with possible victims. Several vehicles had made a U-turn on Flamingo and headed west. The bicycle officer who made the call from the Maxim hotel began trailing the cars, but was too far behind to catch them. He could, however, see them turn left onto Las Vegas Boulevard.
Chris Carroll was a sergeant on the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s bike patrol unit on the Strip. The 12 officers under his command rode in pairs, but Carroll was riding solo when he got the call that night, September 7, 1996. Traffic on the Strip is always slow-moving on a Saturday evening, but it was especially thick in the aftermath of Mike Tyson’s first-round technical knockout of Bruce Seldon at the MGM Grand a few hours earlier. And, now, somewhere in the midst of all those vehicles was a caravan of cars, one of them perhaps carrying the shooter.
Carroll rode north to intercept them. “I’m thinking, ‘How am I going to stop these cars?’” Carroll says. “Usually on bikes, we used whistles and things like that, or we could call for a vehicle to help us. But as I’m riding toward them, I’m thinking, ‘These guys are on the run, there’s multiple cars and I’m heading nose-to-nose with them.’”
*****
The details surrounding Tupac Shakur’s death have been recounted dozens of times in the nearly 18 years since the night he was shot in Las Vegas. Newspaper and magazine articles, books, documentaries and websites have recapped, analyzed, scrutinized and commodified the rapper and actor’s unsolved murder, ranging from sober accounts to wild-eyed conspiracy theories. There are even those who still hold onto the belief that Shakur is not really dead, with reports over the years having him living in Cuba, New Zealand, Tasmania or rural Pennsylvania.
When Shakur died six days after the shooting, at age 25, he was swiftly elevated from star to legend. In this trajectory, he joined other celebrities who died in their prime: James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain. The premise of what might have been captures the imagination; and the intensity of what was never quite lets go.
John Singleton, who directed Shakur in the 1993 movie Poetic Justice, has co-written and will direct a feature film about the controversial hip-hop star, with production scheduled for later this year, and a Tupac-inspired musical, Holler If You Hear Me, is set to open on Broadway on June 19. But even with all the attention given to Shakur’s life and death, there remains one account of the night of the shooting that has not been heard before: from the police officer who was first on the scene.
The songs of Tupac Shakur will be used as material for a new Broadway musical, scheduled to debut in the 2013-2014 season. Holler If Ya Hear Me will be co-produced by the late rapper's mother, Afeni Shakur.
"Tupac was a prophet and I want everyone to see that," director Kenny Leon told Broadway.com. Although Shakur "is not a character" in the production, his music will be used to tell a "present-day" story, written by Todd Kreidler.
Holler If Ya Hear Me reportedly centres on the story of two childhood friends, "struggling to reconcile the challenges and realities of their daily lives with their hopes, dreams and ambitions".
It is not set in any of the places most closely associated with Shakur – New York, his birthplace; California, his longtime home; or Las Vegas, where he was murdered in 1996. Instead, Leon and Kreidler are telling the contemporary tale "of a midwestern industrial city" such as Detroit or Cleveland.
Last week, the Hollywood Walk of Fame announced that Shakur, just 25 when he died, would receive a posthumous star on the landmark LA street, honouring his career. The rapper's albums have sold more than 75m copies.
Rolling Stones / BY DANIEL KREPS November 30, 2015
Eight months after director John Singleton parted ways with the Tupac Shakur biopic – and just a month after his replacement Carl Franklin quietly stepped away from the film – producers have recruited another director to helm the long-in-the-works movie.
Music video vet Benny Boom will now take over the project that's working with an incredibly tight deadline: If the film doesn't go into production by year's end, 2Pac's big screen music rights will revert back to the rapper's mother Afeni Shakur, The Hollywood Reporter writes.
Tupac Shakur Tupac Shakur Video Director Seeking Funds for Rapper Biopic »
"I am blessed with the opportunity of a lifetime," Boom wrote on Instagram next to a photo of the rapper. "Telling the story of this revolutionary, artist, visionary, genius, soldier! I will make him proud and uphold the legacy." The filmmaker has previously directed videos by Nicki Minaj ("Beez in the Trap"), Busta Rhymes ("Touch It"), Lil Wayne, Keyshia Cole, 50 Cent and many more, as well as the 2009 film Next Day Air.
Despite the success of Straight Outta Compton, a film that proved that a hip-hop biopic could thrive at the box office, production on the Shakur film has slowed due to creative differences and ongoing lawsuits.
The film was originally scheduled to begin production in June with Singleton as director, but despite a finished script, the biopic was put "on hold." That was followed soon after by Singleton's loud exit.
"The reason I am not making this picture is because the people involved aren't really respectful of the legacy of Tupac Amaru Shakur," Singleton wrote in April.
"They have no true love for 'Pac so this movie will not be made with love, and that's why my ass isn't involved! If Tupac knew what was going on he'd ride on all these fools and take it to the streets...but I won't do that. I'll just make my own project." Singleton then promised to spearhead his own 2Pac film.
Out of Time and House of Cards director Carl Franklin was then tasked with reining the Shakur biopic, but he left the project last month after a pair of producers filed a $10 million breach of contract lawsuit against the production company Morgan Creek.
