The first officer to arrive on the scene at the 1996 shooting death of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas has revealed the iconoclast rapper’s final words.
In a piece via Vegas Seven, retired sergeant Chris Carroll of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department provided never before shared details about that fateful evening.
“And then I saw in his face, in his movements, all of a sudden in the snap of a finger, he changed. And he went from struggling to speak, being noncooperative, to an ‘I’m at peace’ type of thing. Just like that. . . He went from fighting to ‘I can’t do it.’ And when he made that transition, he looked at me, and he’s looking right in my eyes. And that’s when I looked at him and said one more time, ‘Who shot you?’ He looked at me and he took a breath to get the words out, and he opened his mouth, and I thought I was actually going to get some cooperation. And then the words came out: ‘F**k you.’ After that, he started gurgling and slipping out of consciousness.”
Carroll gave two reasons for coming forward with his recollection of that night’s events:
“It just wasn’t time to speak earlier. Now it’s been almost 18 years; there’s clearly never going to be a court case on this. The second main reason I didn’t go public with this before is I didn’t want Tupac to be a martyr or hero because he told the cops ‘F**k you.’ I didn’t want to give him that. I didn’t want people to say, ‘Even when the chips were down, his life on the line, he still said “Fuck you,” he still wouldn’t talk to the police.’ I didn’t want him to be a hero for that. And now enough time has passed, well, he’s a martyr anyway; he’s viewed as a hero anyway. My story, at this point, isn’t going to change any of that.”
In the detailed and great piece, Carroll added that he has never been contacted by an attorney, family member or anyone else representing Shakur to recap the events of that night.
