Orlando Anderson

Orlando Tive "Baby Lane" Anderson (August 13, 1974 – May 29, 1998) was an American gang member suspected in the murder of Tupac Shakur.

Anderson belonged to the California-based gang known as the South Side Compton Crips.

Detective Tim Brennan of the Compton Police Department filed an affidavit naming Anderson as a suspect; he denied involvement and was never charged.

Anderson's uncle, Duane Keith Davis, was charged with Shakur's murder on September 29, 2023.

Orlando Tive Anderson was born on August 13, 1974, into an African-American household in Compton, California.

He had a secure childhood with his grandparents after his parents split up.

His mother worked 12 hour shifts as a bookkeeper to support her children.

He joined the South Side Compton Crips gang at some point in his youth.

Anderson attended Taft High School, where he was a conscientious student who passed his exams and received good grades.

He returned to Dominguez High School for his senior year and got his diploma.

During high school, he met a young woman named Rasheena Smith, whom he started dating.

He fathered four children.

In July 1996, Anderson was involved in an altercation at Lakewood Mall, where he and his entourage assaulted Trevon Lane, an employee of Death Row Records, and attempted to steal his Death Row medallion.

There was rumored to be a bounty placed on Death Row medallions by their rivals, the Compton Crips, of which Anderson was a member.

This move infuriated Suge Knight, Tupac Shakur, and the rest of Death Row.

On September 7, 1996, after the Bruce Seldon vs. Mike Tyson fight, Trevon Lane coincidentally spotted Anderson by himself in the MGM Grand Las Vegas, and told Tupac and the rest of the Death Row entourage that Anderson was the one responsible for snatching his medallion.

Tupac can then be seen on the MGM's security camera running over to Anderson with the rest of his entourage and throwing the first punch.

Anderson then suffered a severe beatdown as he was jumped by five men with no one to help him.

According to BG Knocc Out in an interview with VladTV, Anderson escaped the worst of the beating by managing to cover his face during the attack.

The beating occurred three hours before Shakur's shooting.

Later that month, Las Vegas MPD homicide detective Lt. Larry Spinosa told the media, "At this point, Orlando Anderson is not a suspect in the shooting of Tupac Shakur."

Anderson was subsequently named a suspect.

Rumors circulated that he had bragged about shooting the rapper, a claim he later denied in an interview for VIBE magazine.

In September 1997 Anderson told the Los Angeles Times that he was a fan of Shakur and his music but denied being the murderer.

Anderson was detained in Compton, California, a month after Shakur was shot, along with twenty-one other alleged gang members.

He was not charged.

However, the arrest was only tangentially connected to the Tupac shooting, as Compton police said they were investigating local shootings and not the one in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas police discounted Anderson as a suspect, according to a Los Angeles Times article, due to the short time between the hotel beating and the murder.

Las Vegas police failed to follow up with a member of Shakur's entourage who witnessed the shooting and who told police he could identify one or more of the assailants.

That witness, rapper Yaki Kadafi, was killed two months later.

The police also failed to follow up on a lead from a witness who had spotted a white Cadillac similar to the car from which the fatal shots were fired and in which the shooters escaped.

Soon after the shooting of Tupac Shakur, a gang war broke out in Compton between the Bloods and Crips.

BG Knocc Out, who was close friends with Anderson, stated that Anderson was shot in the legs with an AK-47 and was confined to a wheelchair for some time.

A year later, Shakur's mother Afeni Shakur filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Anderson in response to a lawsuit he had filed against Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight, Death Row associates, and Shakur's estate.

Anderson's lawsuit sought damages for injuries resulting from the MGM Grand scuffle, and for emotional and physical pain.

Anderson was shot and killed in an unrelated gang shootout altercation at the age of 23 in May 1998.

Afeni Shakur's lawsuit was filed just four days after Anderson's. The Associated Press reported in 2000 that Shakur and Anderson's estates settled the competing lawsuits just hours before Anderson's death.

Anderson's lawyer claimed the settlement would have netted Anderson $78,000.

In October 2011, former LAPD Detective Greg Kading, a former investigator in the murder of Christopher "Biggie Smalls" Wallace, released a book alleging that Sean "Diddy" Combs commissioned Anderson's uncle, Duane "Keefe D" Davis, to kill Shakur, as well as Knight, for $1 million.

Kading and Davis claimed that Anderson was present in the vehicle that pulled up next to the BMW in which Tupac was shot.