Armed and Dangerous: Search Widens for Suspect in Fatal Shooting on Las Vegas Strip

Ammar Harris mug shot

by Cathy Scott

The dramatic shooting involving luxury cars on the Las Vegas Strip, which ended in three deaths, including a rapper, can't help but be compared to the shooting just two blocks from where hip-hop star Tupac Shakur was mortally wounded.

The similarities are eery. car-to-car shooting at a busy intersection on the Strip with the gunman fleeing into the darkness; the victim, trying to get away from the gunfire while mortally wounded, ran a red light and ended up in an intersection two blocks from where Tupac was shot.

It was not unlike when Suge Knight, Tupac's record producer who was driving and was struck by shrapnel at the base of his neck, with Tupac, shot multiple times in the passenger seat, took off in his BMW, trying to flee the gunfire. The driver of the Cadillac from which the shooter fired sped away into the night, just as the Range Rover used in the Las Vegas Strip shooting got away.

In this recent case, however, unlike in the Shakur murder investigation, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police are determined to catch the killer. They've already located the Range Rover used in the shooting, and there's been a manhunt for the suspect since it went down just before dawn on February 21. The search has been expanded to include southeast states, where the suspect once lived.

The suspect has been identified as Ammar Harris, 26, who's also known as Ammar Asim Faruq Harris. As of this writing, he was still at large, although the black Range Rover that police said was used in the shooting has been located and impounded. If the motive is known, police have not released it.

Harris is considered armed and dangerous, and, police say, if he is seen, he should not be approached. He has several tattoos, including a small heart below his right eye and an owl that covers his neck and a portion of his chest. Harris, who is a convicted felon, has been arrested in the past for kidnapping, soliciting clients for a prostitute, and sexual assault, according to a news release.

The shooting occurred after an argument at in the valet area of a nearby hotel.

Kenneth Cherry, 27, an aspiring rapper known by the stage name Kenny Clutch, drove his Maserati from the valet area around 4:20 a.m. on February 21 when a suspect in the Range Rover shot at his car as it headed north on Las Vegas Boulevard. Cherry, who was shot in the chest and arm, later died at a local hospital.

Cherry, to escape the gunfire, drove the Maserati into the intersection on the Strip at Flamingo Road, against a red traffic light, and crashed into a taxi, which caught fire, killing cab driver Michael Boldon and his passenger, Sandra Sutton-Wasmund, 48, of Maple Valley, Washington. The Clark County Coroner's Office has ruled all three deaths as homicides.

When I wrote the book, The Killing of Tupac Shakur, it was done in part to help solve the crime that police seemed reticent to investigate in-depth. Today, it's a different story. Had there been videotape at the parking garage set back from the street where Tupac was shot, police perhaps could have better pursued the killer.

There was videotape in the parking garage at the TI (previously known as Treasure Island hotel and casino), where Crips gang member Orlando Anderson stayed with fellow Crips gang members. Anderson is widely believed to be the shooter in the Shakur case.

Why Las Vegas police did not get images from surveillance video in the TI parking garage, to see if a white Cadillac had left the garage that evening, is still unknown.

In the meantime, the killing of Tupac Shakur remains unsolved, at least officially. But the Kenny Clutch investigation appears to be well on its way to the suspect's arrest so justice can be served this time around.

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Is Confession Real in Shooting of Rapper Tupac?

Jimmy "Henchman" Rosemond

by Cathy Scott

Something stinks in River City, namely the bold words of a convict named Dexter Isaac who, on the eve of what would have been rapper Tupac Shakur’s 40th birthday, “confessed” to shooting Tupac in November 1994 during a grab-and-run armed robbery at a recording studio in New York City.

Tupac survived that shooting. With him that winter night was rapper Randy “Stretch” Walker, who a year later was shot and killed driving a vehicle. Two years after the Quad Studios event, Tupac, too, was killed in a car-to-car shooting, which remains unsolved but is widely believed to have been carried out by the Crips street gang out of Compton, California.

Isaac chose to announce his so-called confession on AllHipHop.com, a popular rap site. Isaac, in his grand confession, claimed he was paid $2,500 by Czar Entertainment founder James “Jimmy Henchman” Rosemond to pull off the stunt. Isaac also claims he kept “the gold chain” he and a supposed accomplice yanked from Tupac’s neck. The problem with that claim is everything Isaac has said can be found in newspaper accounts of the ’94 shooting. Another problem is that several gold chains, not just one, as Isaac stated, were stolen from Tupac that night.

Isaac’s confession doesn’t add up, and I, for one, am not buying it.

Here’s what actually played out in the late-night hours of November 30, 1994: Tupac was wearing $35,000 worth of jewelry, including two rings, as he and his buddies walked into Quad Recording Studios in Times Square so Tupac could help out a lesser-known performer by rapping on his CD. Hanging out just inside the studio lobby was a man, while another stood outside, both wearing Army fatigues. They jumped all four people, grabbed $5,000 worth of jewelry and chains off Stretch’s neck, then yanked the jewelry from Tupac’s neck.

One of the men grabbed Tupac’s hand and pulled two rings from it. Tupac was shot only after he went for his gun, and they weren’t fatal shots. The perpetrators disappeared into the night.

Tupac didn’t know until earlier in the day that he’d be at Quad studios. Singers are often asked to backup other singers and appear on their CDs, so Tupac, for a fee, agreed at the last minute to help an up-and-coming rapper by performing on one of his tracks. That rapper had nothing to do with Rosemond, and neither did Tupac.

And what did Rosemond have to gain by rubbing out Tupac? The answer? Not a thing.

We’re led to believe by Isaac that Rosemond told him to “Find Tupac, steal jewelry off his neck, keep the jewelry, shoot him, and, in return, I’ll pay you $2,500 for doing it. But give me Tupac’s diamond ring for my girlfriend.”

Hooey, I say. Rosemond doesn’t have a motive. But Isaac does, and that’s cooperating with the feds in a drug-related case against Rosemond where Isaac has reportedly been named as an accomplice. To get himself off the hook, he’s ‘fessing up. Rosemond’s no angel, and I’m not defending him. But facts are facts.

Robbery was the obvious motive for whoever robbed and shot Tupac. Police, however, didn’t check pawnshops for the stolen jewelry and closed the case 30 days later because, as NYPD Detective George Nagy told me two years after the shooting, “Tupac and his attorney wouldn’t talk to us.” So police closed the case.

As for Rosemond, who’s had a federal warrant out for his arrest on drug charges since mid May, was recently taken into custody by federal agents as he left the W Hotel in New York City’s Union Square. Rosemond’s attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, called the shooting accusation a "flat-out lie," telling Reuters news service that Isaac invented the story to help authorities build their case against Rosemond.

"This is not [Isaac] being a good soldier or clearing his conscience. It's a desperate 17-year-old attempt to reduce his sentence," Lichtman said.

As for 46-year-old Isaac, he’s serving life in prison, for an unrelated murder conviction, at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, which houses federal inmates. NYPD’s Paul Browne told CBS News that his department was looking into Isaac’s claim, and, if it’s determined it’s legitimate, police will interview Isaac.

I’ll be flabbergasted if it pans out. If a man walks into a police station and says, “I shot Tupac Shakur,” the obvious answer would be, “Prove it.” The burden, in this case, lies with the person making the claim.

Scott is the author of The Killing of Tupac Shakur.

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Remembering Notorious B.I.G. on 14th Anniversary of His Unsolved Murder

by Cathy Scott

"My son's albums, to me, are a celebration of his life." Voletta Wallace, a couple of years after her son's murder on March 9, 1997, said those words in a telephone interview about the murder of Biggie Smalls. She's proud of what her son accomplished in his short life but frustrated that his murder remains unsolved.

Fourteen years after the slaying, the music of Biggie Smalls–a k a Christopher Wallace–is as big as ever. But his murder doesn't appear any closer to being solved than it was shortly after his murder following a VIBE magazine party outside the Petersen Automotive Museum, in Los Angeles, on the eve of the release of Biggie's double-disc album, ironically titled "Life After Death."

No one knows what else Biggie, a New York-based rapper who performed as The Notorious B.I.G., would have accomplished had he not been cut down that fateful March night. He was embraced by his Brooklyn community and rap fans worldwide. What we do know is that Biggie's music, after his death, topped the charts and sold millions of CDs. Like Tupac Shakur before him, Smalls is bigger in death than in life. Biggie was known for his semi-autobiographical lyrics and storytelling and his easy style of rap.

Shakur was killed in Las Vegas six months before Smalls in what some have called eerily similar drive-by shootings. Biggie and Tupac unfortunately became tragic victims of the culture of violence depicted in their lyrics.

Smalls, who died at 24 years old, had been mentoring younger rappers, including hip-hop singer Lil' Kim. On the 14th anniversary of the shooting, Lil' Kim posted her sentiments on Twitter: "On this very day a great soul was laid to rest. Now on this very day we celebrate the rebirth of a beautiful Life! R.I.P Biggie Baby."

Smalls' record producer, Sean "P Diddy" Combs, also took to the pages of Twitter to remember his friend: "Today is #BIGGIEDAY–send me all your videos, links, photos, exclusive content. ALL things BIGGIE so I can tell the world!!"

Spreading the word about her son is music to Mrs. Wallace's ears, to keep her son's legacy alive. But, while Biggie's music keeps his memory on the forefront, his mother, a single mom who worked as a pre-school teacher to support her son, holds out hope his killer (composite sketch, right) will one day be found and brought to justice. Despite the length of time without a named suspect (although a task force in L.A. has been, for several months, looking into the cold case), she keeps the faith.

"I'm not only hoping," Mrs. Wallace told me, "but I am praying that they catch the dog who killed my son. I can't wait. I know that's a trip [to Los Angeles] I'm waiting to take ... to look the murderer in the face."

Cathy Scott's book, The Murder of Biggie Smalls, is a biographical and true crime account of his life and death.

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One Fatal Night in Las Vegas

by Cathy Scott

This week marks the fourteenth anniversary of the day Tupac Shakur was shot. 

And with the anniversary comes ESPN’s new documentary: One Night in Vegas: Tyson & Tupac. The rap star, poet and actor was gunned down just hours after watching Mike Tyson knock out Bruce Seldon at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. “(Tupac) didn't last long, but the time he did last, every minute, every tenth of a moment, was explosive," Tyson told ESPN. 

Tupac was also explosive. In the minutes following Tyson’s professional fight, Tupac got into a street-like fight inside the MGM Grand as he was leaving the arena. 

At the elevator bank just before the MGM’s main lobby, Tupac and his crew ran into Orlando Anderson, a known Crips street gang member from Compton, California. Tupac’s music producer, Suge Knight, who was with Tupac that night, was a known member of the rival gang Mob Piru.

When he spotted Anderson, Tupac said to him, “You’re from the South,” meaning South Compton. And the fight was on. Tupac, Suge and their entourage stomped and kicked Anderson. A security guard split them up, but Orlando, when Las Vegas police arrived, declined to press charges. The officers did not file a police report and did not even take Orlando’s last name. It would be Compton gang cops, a few days after the shooting, when Las Vegas police realized the scuffle might have significance, later offered up Orlando’s full name. They also offered up Orlando's lengthy rap sheet, gang history, and his street moniker "Baby Lane." 

Backpedal a few years to 1992 after Tyson was sent to prison to serve out a sentence for rape. That’s when Tupac reached out to Iron Mike, saying he was going to be in the area and would like to visit him in prison. While they may have been an unlikely pair, both knew how to put up a fight, as evidenced later with the MGM scuffle Tupac started. 

From prison, Tyson paid attention to Tupac’s thug-life image. They regularly talked on the phone. That’s when Tyson, who was a few years older than Shakur, handed out brotherly advice. Shakur told friends it meant a lot to him. “Tyson was giving me a lot of advice,” Tupac told a radio station. “I really looked up to him something hard. He’d tell me to calm down.”

But 'Pac did not appear to take it to heart. And he did not calm down. By the time Tyson was released from prison in 1995, Tupac was in jail on Rikers Island in New York, held on suspicion of a similar charge as Tyson’s, this one sexual abuse against a woman Tupac had met at a club and took back to a friend’s hotel room. Tupac was convicted and sent to the Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York.

Tupac was released on bond, posted by his record producer Suge Knight, pending an appeal. But before the appeal could be heard, Tupac was dead. 

The same night as the Tyson-Seldon fight, Tupac was shot when a gunman in a white Cadillac pulled up to Tupac and Suge’s car and opened fire with a high-caliber Glock handgun, hitting Tupac several times, including in the chest. The Clark County coroner determined the cause of death as multiple gunshot wounds. 

The last time Tyson would talk to Tupac would be in Tyson’s dressing room immediately following the fight. “I told him I’d see him that night and we could hang out,” Tyson told ESPN. Six days later, the 25-year-old hip-hop star was dead. Tupac’s unsolved murder has frustrated rap fans ever since, despite Compton Police (a law enforcement department which has since merged with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department) offering up Orlando Anderson as a suspect. For their part, Las Vegas police have said there wasn’t enough evidence against Orlando, and members of Tupac’s entourage were uncooperative. I began covering the case a couple of hours after the shooting, which was the topic of my book, The Killing of Tupac Shakur, and it appeared, after Anderson's name had become known, that there was motive -- the scuffle -- not to mention Compton Police's discovery of a Glock in the home Anderson lived in and Anderson bragging on his home turf that he'd killed Tupac. But Las Vegas police, who traveled to Compton, did not formally interview Anderson and declined to arrest him. Eighteen months after Tupac was killed, Orlando Anderson was murdered in what police said was an unrelated shooting. We may never know if Orlando was, in fact, the gunman in Tupac's death. 

As for Tyson, he told ESPN that Tupac’s memory lives on through his works. "He's going to last until the time this Earth comes to an end. I'm glad to be a part of his life and to have known him. (Tupac) was probably a misguided warrior. He had a heart as big as this planet. He had so much love and compassion, and you couldn't even see it under his rage." 

In the meantime, the murder of Tupac Shakur, unofficially at least, remains unsolved. 

Photo of Tyson and Tupac, courtesy of ESPN. Other photos courtesy of Yahoo! Images.

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Real or Rumor? Tupac's Murderer Charged.

by Cathy Scott 

It always amazes me when I see a rumor picked up by a media outlet, regardless of how small that outlet is. So I was once again surprised a couple weeks ago when I got an e-mail from a TV producer asking about an arrest in the 13-year-old murder case of platinum-selling rapper Tupac Shakur.

I put on my sleuth cap and started digging. This is what was first reported, from Backseat Cuddler, a gossip site that got Tupac fans and the hip hop world hyped up:

BREAKING NEWS - Tupac Shakur Killer Has Been Arrested In Las Vegas

I just received a message from my source in Las Vegas that Tupac Shakur’s killer has been arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Tupac died on September 13, 1996. On the night of September 7, 1996, Shakur was shot four times in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. He died six days later of respiratory failure and cardiac arrest at the University Medical Center. Tupac Shakur was a rapper, actor, and social activist. Story developing…..

That prompted “Gossip Headlines” to print this reaction, which, in turn, prompted three pages of comments from readers:

Arrest Made?

OMG, OMG, O-M-G, if this is true, hip-hop is about to go into a tailspin!!! According to BackSeatCuddler, Tupac Shakur’s killer has been arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada!!! It was there in Sin City 13 years ago (September 13 marked the 13th anniversary) where the legendary rapper was shot 4 times while sitting in the passenger seat of Suge Knight’s BMW after leaving a Mike Tyson fight at the MGM Grand Hotel. Tupac died six days later from respiratory failure and cardiopulmonary arrest caused by multiple gunshot wounds. See Original Story For More.

Wow, I thought to myself, how could I have missed that one? Maybe it had to do with Notorious B.I.G.’s case, I thought. And that was odd too, because Las Vegas reporters would have been all over the story. A source wasn’t listed in the postings. So I checked TV and print sites and there were no mentions of an arrest. Then I reached out to my law enforcement contacts in Las Vegas and Nevada.

“No,” said a source in the Los Angeles area, “there haven't been any arrests in the Tupac and Biggie cases here.”

Then I called the homicide unit of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and talked with a spokesperson. “There haven’t been any arrests in that case,” she said.

I put out a few more feelers. I came up empty. The only news involving Tupac, who, besides being a rapper, was an actor and poet, is that the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation, which Tupac’s mother, Afeni Shakur, runs, is partnering with Woodruff Library to prepare Tupac’s writings and papers for scholarly research. The Tupac Shakur Collection is currently housed within the Woodruff Library's Archives and Special Collections Department. It features Tupac’s handwritten lyrics, personal notes and fan correspondence, among other items.

Meanwhile, the rumor about an arrest in Tupac's case coincided with the 13th anniversary of his murder. As a result of the anniversary and the rumor, record sales for Tupac’s music went through the roof. And sales for books about Tupac took off too. The warehouse manager at Huntington Press, my publisher for The Killing of Tupac Shakur, said sales had jumped and orders from Amazon.com were especially high.

Other than that, it's been fairly quiet on the Tupac front. So much for a “developing story.”

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