Earlier this month, reports surfaced claiming a Compton police report revealed the gun used in the fatal drive-by shooting of Tupac Shakur back in September 1996, was quietly found 19 years ago in a Compton backyard, two years after his death.
The producers of A&E docu-series Who Killed Tupac? retrieved the report which states in 1998, an anonymous man found a .40 caliber Glock in his backyard. The report states on May 30th, 1998 the weapon was booked as found property.
The whereabouts of the weapon at the time were, unknown, especially since it was not sent to the Las Vegas Police Department immediately for examination, despite being the location of his cold-case murder. Officers from the LVPD told A&E they have never received the gun and others were unsure.
There has apparently been a misunderstanding about the whereabouts of the ruled murder weapon. The LAPD ran tests, which resulted in a possibility the .40 caliber Glock was used in the murder of Tupac Shakur, it was not an exact match.
The gun was later sent to the LVPD for further investigation. The investigation uncovered that the weapon they thought was lost today, was actually destroyed by federal officers, after investigators ruled out the weapon. The gun was reportedly found to be used in another murder, causing federal officers to discard the weapon.
In 2006, Deputy Timothy Brennan of the Compton Police Department recovered a document that enlists the address where the handgun was found was the same address of the girlfriend of a Crip gang member with whom Tupac reportedly had a beef with. Producers of the Who Killed Tupac? docu-series have noted the disappearance of the weapon occurred amidst a time when investigators were very lenient towards gang violence being a primary factor in the murder of Tupac Shakur. They feared for the rise of gang warfare within Tupac camps if the Glock was officially ruled as the murder weapon.
Allegedly, there are reports from 2006 that show the LA County Sheriff’s Department found the .40 caliber Glock to be a match after testing.
In 2002, Southside crips member Orlando Anderson was identified as a probable suspect by the LA Times, despite his 1998 death from a fatal gang shooting.
With the reported destruction of question murder weapon, the murder of Tupac Shakur, remains unsolved.
