After Another Fact

In my last post, I talked about the prevalence of people against talking to the police, especially in impoverished areas populated with a large percentage of ethnic minorities.
 

...and I made a joke with this picture.

Now poverty is ANYTHING but a simple issue.  There are so many components to something that has occurred since the literal dawn of civilization, and it would take up half a lifetime to talk about.

But as I mentioned in my last post, there is a general....well, distrust of the police for these people.  For me, I can see why.

I think that of the biggest issues that law enforcement has had in recent history (meaning from the first big steps of the Civil Rights Movement to present day) in dealing with crime involving those in impoverished areas and/or ethnic minorities, at least two of them are;

1) Suspects will in a lot of cases (not all), be hastened through the system, cutting corners and violating constitutional and human rights to get a conviction.

2) Victims are treated with disregard and those in charge of the case end up dragging their feet.

With that said, I'd like to bring up something that has shaped not only hip hop music, but its following impact on pop culture as a whole

Namely the deaths of Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace, i.e., The Notorious B.I.G.

Both were killed in similar drive by shootings literally months apart from one another, with Tupac shot on September 7, 1996, dying six days later in a coma, and Biggie being shot and killed on March 9, 1997.

The reason I'd like to bring this up is that both of these cases remain unsolved to this day.



...See, it's things like this that make me start to ponder, and accordingly start stroking my magnificent man-beard that totally looks like this:

...Hmmmm

Now not only am I a fan of both of these guys' music, but I have wonder why it is that the killer(s) of arguably the biggest names in rap haven't been found yet.

As far as I can see, from the hours of obsessively geeky research I've done on the issue, it seems that quite a bit of blame rests on the police investigations of the murders...especially in Tupac's case.

This article seems to shed light on many of the wrong steps and missed opportunities had to catch the assailant.

Now it's probably true that some of the witnesses were uncooperative, as I'm sure that in many, many investigations of any kind, the police are bound to run into some people who don't want to talk.

But other than what's stated in the article above, the very settings of both crimes leave much to be desired:

For one, Tupac was shot in Las Vegas at the intersection of Koval Lane and Flamingo Road in front of the Maxim Hotel...on a Saturday night...after a Mike Tyson fight...in front of Tupac's entire entourage of bodyguards and fellow group members.

Biggie was shot outside of the establishment where the after party of the Soul Train Music Awards took place...in L.A...and there's a tape--

 

HOW IN THE HELL DO YOU HAVE THAT MANY WITNESSES NOT TALKING?

 

Not to mention that in the realm of pop culture, a lot of people dismiss these as gang shootings that were in relation to one another because Tupac and Biggie apparently hated each other (even though they used to be friends once, and the rivalry was one-sided as Tupac believed Biggie had something to do with his non-lethal 1994 shooting in New York)

 

I think if people even knew half of what happened on either of those nights, they'd see these events and how they were handled is fishier than a goddamned sushi bar.

 

And just for the sake of evidence (or apparent lack thereof), I'd have to side with Tupac's family on the sentiment that if it were somebody other than Tupac...somebody who was portrayed better in the media...or if they were white, they would have found the killer years ago.  Hell, I bet if somebody had shot Eminem (a rapper with big controversial headlines), they would have found the killer in minutes.

 

I'll also go so far as to say that I think the police were somewhat OK with that fact that these two were dead.  My reason being, that they were black artists often talking about problems affecting poor black people, not to mention that these poems of struggle, violence and oppression (and partying perhaps in spite of it) reached a very wide (and white) audience.

Now I want to be clear...I'm not saying every law enforcement agency is KKK-style bigoted, I'm just saying that the actions taken by those officials back then shed a disturbing light on the issues between law enforcement and human rights.

But if anyone out there does have information on who might've taken these brave, talented souls away from us, please contact the appropriate authorities...for justice's sake.

Rest In Peace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Disclaimer: The content on this blog is based on what I believe happened based on information I've obtained through my own research and should not be blindly taken as truth, or an implication of truth.  I write these posts in the hope that this will get people to think and look these kinds of things up themselves.