Afeni Shakur and Voletta Wallace
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Still Nothing. Afeni Shakur and Voletta Wallace want the truth, but police investigations into the murder of their sons remain fruitless. Ask Afeni Shakur about the unsolved murder of her son, Tupac, and she begins to sing, sadly: "Until the killing of black men/Black mothers' sons/Is as important as the killing of white men/White mothers' sons/We who believe in freedom/will not rest." It is "Ella's Song," a tribute to the late civil rights pioneer Ella Baker. It was originally released in 1989 but the Washington, D.C.-based a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock. " It's about Tupac, Biggie, and many people since, and before, them," Afeni says of the song. "Thousands have been murdered, and it is not a priority to find our why they were killed. That's when I'm left with-the sorrow that our children are expendable." The murders of Tupac Shakur and Christopher "The Notorious BIG." Wallace were very public executions. Tupac was in a traffic jam just off the Las Vegas Strip, after a heavyweight championship fight, when he was ambushed and shot on September 7, 1996. He died six days later. Biggie was assassinated outside a VIBE party in Hollywood on March 9, 1997-blasted as he sat at a stop light. Police have not solved either case. "We have no suspects and no potential suspects," Sgt. Kevin Manning of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department says grimly, more than two years after Shakur's slaying. "We're still receiving fresh information; but tips have slowed down, and none of them are taking us anywhere." The responses has been less than satisfactory to some. "There are two crimes committed here," said Shakur estates attorney Richard Fishbein to Tacoma, Washington's News Tribune. "One is that Tupac was killed. The other is that no competent police investigation into his murder followed. It's a shame that the mother of the murder victim is put in a position to have to do the work of the Las Vegas Police Department." Det. Fred Miller, one of four L.A. Police Department investigators assigned full-time to the murder of Christopher Wallace, sounds a little more optimistic. "There's nothing I can comment on because I don't want our suspects to read it," Miller says, "But there is definitely a light at the end of the tunnel." Voletta Wallace, Biggie's mother, hears this and sighs. "I hope that light comes soon," she says, "because I'm living in darkness right now." Shakur and Wallace have been critical of police investigators from the outset. But the women also voice disappointment in music industry executives who have profited from their sons' work but haven't put up reward money that might entice witnesses to come forward. "I will not go to Puffy Combs or Clive Davis and ask them to offer a reward," says Wallace, who has put up $25,000 of her own money to match the $25,000 offered but the City of Los Angeles. "My son has already done enough for them. I will not do that for them. That takes [their own] conscience." Combs, who compares his own grief over Biggie's death to "losing my heart," was moved by Wallace's comments. "If I have to make sure the reward gets higher, that will be done," he said softly. "But the money would still come through her. At the time Biggie passed away, I went to Miss Wallace, and I told her I thought it would be best that the reward came from her. I thought it would be over-sensationalized coming from me. I didn't want all types of crazy people coming out of the woodwork with misinformation I thought people would respect a reward coming from the mother and bring forth the most factual and accurate tips. But I will speak to her about it again. My thing is to always make her happy." "I'm sure there are people who do not want these murders solved," say Afeni. She believes Tupac's murderer was Orlando Anderson, an alleged Compton gang member who was roughed up in the lobby of the MGM Grand Hotel by Tupac and a Death Row Records entourage a couple of hours before the shooting. Although Anderson was killed in a Compton shoot-out on May 29, Afeni said she hopes to shed more light on the circumstances surrounding her son's death by continuing the wrongful-death civil suit she filed last year. (Now it's against Anderson's estate.) "I'm sure the truth is not as simple as who pulled the trigger. It's too easy to blame the police or to talk about black and white. That messes up the real issue, which is that we help to make ourselves expendable by not valuing the lives that come before us, whether that is Tupac or Biggie or and mother's son.
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