Please note: Orlando Anderson was never charged in the Tupac Shakur case. He denied any involvement until his death in 1998 and can no longer answer later claims. The person convicted in 2026 was his uncle, Duane “Keffe D” Davis; that verdict is not final (as of October 2026).
A few hours before the shooting in Las Vegas, Orlando Anderson was beaten up in the lobby of the MGM Grand by Tupac, Suge Knight and their entourage. Soon Anderson was seen as the man who opened fire on the rapper two hours later. It was never proven. Anderson died at 23, before any court could rule on him. The only trial in the murder case took place almost 30 years later, against someone else.
An aspiring screenwriter from Compton
In 1996 Anderson was 22. He lived in Compton and, by his own account, later moved to Lakewood, southeast of Los Angeles. Police classified him as a member of the Southside Compton Crips. Anderson himself denied being a Crip at all and called himself an aspiring screenwriter. His nickname was “Baby Lane.” Investigators regarded his uncle, Duane “Keffe D” Davis, as a leader of the Crips.
Blows in the MGM Grand lobby
According to the account investigators later adopted, Anderson was part of a group that tried to take a chain from a Death Row associate at a Lakewood mall a few weeks before September 7, 1996. On the night of the Tyson fight he was recognized at the MGM Grand. Tupac, Knight and several other men punched and kicked him (details on The MGM Grand Fight).
A police officer who attended to Anderson afterward told the 2026 trial: “We thought he was a victim.” Anderson declined to press charges. For Suge Knight the surveillance tape still had consequences: it served as evidence of a probation violation that sent him to prison for nine years in 1997. In the proceedings over that violation, Rolling Stone reports, Anderson testified on Knight’s behalf.
Suspected, but never charged
Informants of the Compton police named Anderson as the shooter within days of the killing. On October 2, 1996, he was picked up in a sweep that netted about a dozen gang members and released without charges. A Compton police affidavit claimed he had been seen after the shooting with a .40-caliber Glock, the type of gun used in the killing. Las Vegas police, for their part, said there was no direct evidence against him.
Anderson fought back in public. “I didn’t do it,” he told CNN in March 1997. He felt like a scapegoat; his lawyer, Edi M. O. Faal, said his client was living almost like a prisoner (MTV report). In September 1997 he spoke to the Los Angeles Times: Tupac had been “like a hero” to him, and he had bought every one of his records. He called the Compton affidavit “fiction” and said he wished the real killer would be caught so his name could be cleared (1997 report).
Two civil suits and a settlement
On September 8, 1997, Anderson sued Tupac’s estate, Knight and Death Row staff for around a million dollars in damages over the beating at the MGM Grand. Four days later Afeni Shakur filed a wrongful-death suit against him (MTV report). In February 1998 the family’s lawyers questioned Anderson under oath for six hours.
Neither case ever reached a verdict. After Anderson’s death his estate said his lawyer had been promised a $78,000 settlement only hours before he was killed. When no money arrived, the family sued to enforce it. The two sides settled in July 2000; the lawyers would not disclose the amount.
Fatal shots in Compton
On the afternoon of May 29, 1998, Anderson and another man stopped at a carwash on Alondra Boulevard in Compton, near Compton High School, where several members of a rival gang had gathered. Police said the confrontation grew out of an old dispute over money; both sides opened fire. Three men died, among them Anderson, 23. A fourth was wounded and booked on suspicion of murder. Police did not point to any connection with the Tupac case.
Shooter or not?
After his death Anderson’s name came even more into focus. In 2002 the Los Angeles Times named him as the gunman in a major investigative series (see The LA Times Scandal Around Chuck Philips). But it was his uncle’s statements that shaped his image most, and they contradict one another:
- In 1998 Davis told the FBI his nephew had not been involved.
- In 2008 he told detectives working with Greg Kading that Anderson took the gun and fired after DeAndre “Big Dre” Smith hesitated.
- In 2019 he said in a YouTube interview that Orlando rolled down the window and fired.
- In 2023 another witness told the grand jury that Smith had told him he fired himself, because Anderson had no clear shot.
- After the 2026 verdict Davis said he and his people had nothing to do with it.
The 2026 trial did not need to settle the question: Davis was convicted as the organizer, not the shooter. Whether Anderson pulled the trigger has therefore never been established in court, and it is unlikely ever to be. Smith, who died in 2004, and the alleged driver, Terrence Brown, shot dead in 2015, are gone too. All the suspects are weighed on Suspects at a Glance, the trial on The Trial of Duane Davis.
Orlando Anderson’s story reaches beyond the case files. In 2019 the rapper Glasses Malone told the night of the shooting in a song from Anderson’s perspective (news item).