Tupac trial spotlights decades of US police failures in solving the case

Tupac Shakur poses for a portrait on 7 January 1992 in Oakland, California. Photograph: Gary Reyes /Oakland Tribune Staff Archives via Getty

For years, US law enforcement officials blamed their failure to solve hip-hop star Tupac Shakur’s murder on the lack of cooperation from key witnesses, and on gang members’ “snitches get stitches” culture.

But testimony in a much-delayed murder trial, which concluded this week, almost 30 years after Shakur’s death, highlighted just how much law enforcement officials knew about the shooting, and how early.