Just hours before 2Pac was gunned down in Las Vegas, a group of teenage fans had a scary, and potentially deadly, run-in with the West Coast rapper. It was a false alarm that involved Glocks, a football game, and In-N-Out Burger.
According to a Jeff Pearlman story published by the Bleacher Report, a group of Long Beach Polytechnic High School students came across the legendary artist after losing a football game in Vegas. While traveling back to their hometown, the players and coaches stopped in Barstow, California, to get a bite at In-N-Out. It was there that one of the students spotted Pac with his entourage.
"Yo, it’s Pac!" Robert Hollie, the team’s backup quarterback said while looking out a bus window. "It’s Tupac! It’s Tupac."
As we now know, the rapper was one his way to Vegas to see "The Championship: Part II" boxing match featuring Mike Tyson and Bruce Seldon. Pac was fatally shot shortly after the event.
Once the students spotted the rapper, several of them decided to approach him and crew, which included members of the Mob Piru gang. Eyewitnesses said Pac as speaking loudly with his back turned to the students, but once he heard the footsteps approaching, he spun around and two of his crew members pulled guns on the high schoolers.
"Bloods, you can’t be walking up on me like that!" Tupac reportedly shouted. "You don’t know me like that!"
Larry Croom, one of the Poly students who went on to play for the NFL, recalled the incident: "He was extremely paranoid. He started cursing—he was irate. We were just kids, so it was definitely an overreaction."
Once Pac realized they were just kids, he immediately calmed down and began engaging:
"Where are all y’all little niggas from?" he asked.
The players reportedly spoke to rapper for about five minutes; however, some kids left the situation with a bad taste in their mouth. After loading on the bus, several of the students yelled obscenities at Pac as the bus pulled out of the parking lot.
"There was one guy coming on our bus, and I won’t give up his name," Croom said. "But he screamed, 'That’s why you got shot! And the next time I hope you die!'"
Several hours later, Pac was shot four times outside the MGM Grand Arena. He died from the injuries nearly a week later.
The tragedy, of course, had a huge effect on the Long Beach Poly football team.
"You see someone, then he’s dead," says Pisith Vunn, a Long Beach Poly running back. "That’s a lot for a young mind."
You can (and definitely should) read the full story here.
