Two Off Duty Officers

Oct. 30, 1993, Tupac performed at Clark Atlanta University. And in the early hours of Halloween, he and his caravan of cars were heading back to the Sheridan Hotel to celebrate the show, with Tupac in the front car. But when they arrived, they saw two white men beating a Black driver in the middle of the road, blocking the hotel entrance. Meanwhile, Clayton County officer Mark Whitwell, 33, and his brother, Henry County officer Scott Whitwell, 32, and their two wives had just finished celebrating Scott’s wife passing the bar exam at the hotel. When they left and began to cross the street, they said they were nearly struck by an unrelated driver when an argument began. This altercation is what Tupac and his crew drove into.

“It looked like a fight. And as we got closer we seen it was two white guys jumping a Black dude,” said rapper E.D.I. Mean, who was in one of the rear cars. “And immediately Pac just jumped out of the car.”

When Tupac jumped out, everyone in the caravan followed. And then, according to Atlanta Police Department Captain Herb Carson, “One of the officers pointed a gun toward the group.” Later, during the hearing, Mark admitted that it was him.

Dressed in plain clothes, the Whitwell brothers were not immediately recognizable as police officers. Whether they identified themselves as such before brandishing a firearm has remained unclear. But what happened next isn’t.

The Whitwells were visibly intoxicated, and Shakur responded to the drawn gun by pulling out his own. Then, Mark Whitwell smashed Tupac’s car window with the butt of his pistol and Tupac fired three shots from his 9mm Glock. Two of the bullets hit the Whitwells — Mark was shot in the abdomen and his brother in the buttocks.