Cathy Scott: Ambitionz Az A Ridah

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 […]

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.