The C.O.W.S. LAbyrinth: The Assassination of Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace, LAPD Racism Part 3

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Thursday, June 24th 8:00PM Eastern/ 5:00PM Pacific

The Context of White Supremacy hosts the 3rd study session on Randall Sullivan’s LAbyrinth : A Detective Investigates the Murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B. I. G. , the Implications of Death Row Records’ Suge Knight, and the Origins of the Los Angeles Police Scandal. Sullivan is an actor, journalist, producer, screenwriter, and author who’s hosted a television program on Oprah Winfrey’s network and written reports for The Washington Post and Rolling Stone. And, he’s a White man. Way back when The C.O.W.S. was in middle of reading Jeffrey Toobin’s The Run of His Life, Gus said that a master class on the Simpson trial would examine that case in context with the beating of Rodney King and the subsequent trial and rioting, the LAPD Rampart scandal, and the assassinations of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. The book club just concluded Geronimo Pratt’s biography, which examines how the very same LAPD and Los Angeles district attorney’s office conspired to keep an innocent black male caged for 25 years – where he could have easily been killed. Importantly, the former Black Panther and COINTELPRO victim Pratt was Shakur’s godparent. Last week, Sullivan made it clear: O.J. Simpson is a “murder.” Sullivan described the mid 1990’s as a time when White LAPD officers were bitter about “Affirmative Action” hiring policies, black officers who thought O.J. Simpson was innocent, and being the target of lingering resentment from the 1992 riots. He also stated that White officers feared being hauled into court and interrogated by Johnnie Cochran. He details the 1997 killing of Kevin Gaines, a black LAPD officer. Sullivan insists that Gaines had previous incidents of road rage, and that a number black officers intimidated witnesses to give testimony damaging to the White police shooter, Frank Lyga.