1995369 words · 2 min
Stretch on the night at Quad Studios
1995: Tupac's old friend Stretch was there during the robbery. In Vibe he contradicts Tupac on key points, months before his own death.
Original: Statement by Randy “Stretch” Walker, titled “Stretch on the NY Shooting” · Vibe · 1995
Randy “Stretch” Walker of the group Live Squad had been one of Tupac’s closest friends since 1991 and was standing next to him on the night at Quad. The “Ready to Live” interview “bugged me out,” he writes. But he knows Tupac: when he’s upset, he says things he regrets later.
One shot at the elevator
Stretch tells it a little differently from Tupac. The four of them were suspicious, he says, but seeing Lil’ Cease in the window upstairs put them at ease. Outside the studio stood a man in an army jacket, inside sat one with a newspaper. At the elevator, he says, the robbers drew their guns at once.
Tupac turned as if to reach for his own pistol, because he was armed. Then a shot went off and Tupac went down. Stretch heard only one shot, not four or five. The robbers kicked Tupac and robbed him. Afterwards the group went upstairs because a police car was outside and one of Tupac’s companions was holding his second gun.
Names don’t belong in the media
What bothers Stretch most is Tupac’s line that he expected Stretch to fight. Unarmed, against pistols? And Tupac naming names breaks, for Stretch, a basic rule of the street: that kind of thing doesn’t belong in the media.
A year later in Queens
The statement is an important counterweight to Tupac’s account, because Stretch was on his side and still disagrees. On one point the medical record contradicts him: according to reports at the time, Tupac was hit several times, including in the head, not just once.
Whether the two ever made peace afterwards is not documented. On November 30, 1995, exactly one year after the robbery, Stretch was shot dead in Queens after a car chase. His murder remains unsolved; a link to the conflict around Tupac has been suspected but never established. At the time, Tupac declined to comment to Vibe.
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