By Chris Richburg and Martin Berrios
The war of words between former Death Row Records Head of Security Reginald Wright Jr. and Kevin Hackie, a former bodyguard for rap legend Tupac Shakur, reached a new level as Hackie has offered Wright $100,000 to take a lie detector test to prove he had nothing to do with Shakur’s still unsolved murder.
To date, Wright maintains he did not play a role in the 1996 slaying, which occurred in Las Vegas.
However, Hackie, who recently revealed himself to be an FBI agent during a screening of the documentary Tupac: Assassination - Conspiracy or Revenge?, is not convinced.
"I will go on record and publicly offer him $100,000 dollars of my own money for him to take a polygraph test and if it comes out correct that he had nothing to do with the murder of Tupac Shakur, I will pay him that money," Hackie told AllHipHop.com. "And I will publicly make sure it's on the six o'clock news that he hasn't had anything to do with it. I'm reaching out to him."
Hackie’s offer comes 10 years after his last conversation with Wright, an exchange of words where the agent claims he would be the one to arrest Wright.
Hackie worked for Shakur and a security detail for Death Row from 1992-1996.
Although he was supposed to be with the rapper the night of his killing, Hackie admitted that was unable to meet Shakur in Las Vegas because he had to help clear a suspect he arrested in Compton, to see a doctor at Los Angeles County General Hospital.
"At about six o'clock I received a call from Reggie that I needed to go to the airport and he had a flight waiting for me at seven o clock," he said. "I called up Tupac and he told me ‘Kev, I'm going to Vegas but I don't want to go because I don't trust these ni**a's.’ He [Tupac] told me to hurry up and make my flight. I advised him of my situation. I told him this is where I'm at, at the county jail. I said look ‘whatever you do wear your vest. ‘
Upset with having one person with Shakur, Hackie eventually made it to Las Vegas at the request of the rapper’s mother, Afeni Shakur, after getting off duty hours later.
Before Hackie could make it to Shakur’s side, a gunman shot Shakur four times as he rode shotgun in a black BMW driven by Death Row Records’ CEO, Marion "Suge" Knight.
According to Hackie, he is clear as to what happened once he arrived at the hospital.
"I'll never forget the look in Suge and Reggie's eyes when I saw them at the hospital," Hackie said. "In 17 years of being a cop, I've seen a lot of guilty people and the look Suge had in his face, the look in his eyes when he looked at me, I knew damn well from their looks, those f***ers were guilty. There's no doubt about it."
Shakur’s murder sent shockwaves through the rap community and police continue to struggle to find someone responsible for the killing.
According to Hackie, Shakur’s rap rival Christopher "Notorious B.I.G." Wallace and Bad Boy Records CEO Sean "Diddy" Combs were originally listed as suspects.
"At the end of the day [blaming Combs] was to throw people off," Hackie claims. "One thing about a cop and I don't care about what type a cop it is, if a cop ever tells you that he hasn't walked both sides of the line, he's a damn liar. As a cop we know the good aspects and the bad aspects. So who better than to take hits on the two most prominent rap stars?…At the end of the day I will be the one there to make sure there is an arrest."