Tupac's sister testimony at sentencing emotionally recalls brother's 'intentions for a better world'

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: All right, ma'am, we're going to have you sworn in. Your disowns for the testimony you're about to give in this action shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so happy God. [00:00:12] Speaker ?: Yes. [00:00:13] Speaker 1: May I please have you state and spell your first and last name for the record? [00:00:18] Speaker 2: Setchua Shakur. [00:00:22] Speaker 1: May I have you spell it? [00:00:23] Speaker 2: S-E-K-Y-I-W-A-S-H-A-K-U-R. [00:00:31] Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. And what did you want to tell me about the impact that this crime has had on your life, which I'm sure has been a mess? [00:00:41] Speaker 3: Thank you for hearing us out. Your Honor, when you ask me about the impact of my brother's life, I feel like I first have to know what he meant to our family. My brother was born an icon. He was born a legend. My mother fought for his life while she was herself on trial, facing 365 years in prison. While she was on trial and on bail, she decided to, she wanted to leave something behind in case she got the time. She was 22 at the time. She went against her husband, against everything she knew to conceive his child. She fought the courts to feed him, to get nourishment. And after she was acquitted one month and three days later, Tupac Amaro Shakur was born. She first named him parish to St. Cook's because she was afraid that the government, the state, or enemies were trying to take him from her while he was in the hospital. So I say, beginning with that, because my mother's not here to see this day, and she fought for his life since before he was born. She consciously raised him to be a human rights activist, someone to stand up for those weaker and smaller than he was. And that's who he was to me and all of the family. He was the person that you go to for protection, even as a nine-year-old. As a nine-year-old, we lived in New York City in the 80s. He was the oldest of the younger kids in the family. And his responsibility was to watch over the younger kids. When I say watch over, I mean he would take us back and forth to school. We lived in Harlem, went to school to the Lower East Side. We had to take two trains, two buses, and walk plenty of blocks every single day. We had to take a look at him being responsible for the five kids younger than him. And he did that. He never stopped. He's not only my brother four years my senior, but he's also my father figure. He was the man in my home. He was charged with being the man in the home. He was charged with being a person to be responsible and take care of me, to keep me out of trouble, to pull me off the street corners with my friends when I was past my curfew. He was his responsibility to make sure I ate. And it wasn't just me again, everybody in our immediate family, our extended family, and as we got older, our community as a whole. So, when you take the protection from a young woman, I was 20, two weeks before turning 21, when he was murdered. My children was 18 months and nine months, which already tells you that the responsibility that he had on his plate, just from me alone. He was paying all of the bills, all of the rent, all of the food, clothes, for at least, I've counted them, 17 different families at the age of 25. And he had started that when he was 17, 18. When I was, when he began his career, when I was in New York on the school's separate lives, he sent what he could every single month. He sent me my aunt $50 a month in the beginning just to contribute to the household that his sister was living in. [00:05:12] Speaker 1: He's an example of a 20-year-old or a 19-year-old. [00:05:26] Speaker 3: My son, my son was six months when he died. His, his father, his uncles were in that car procession that night. My younger cousins was in that car procession that night, procession that night. my little brother was in the car procession that night. And none of these men in my family were the same again. This, that day, the loss of Tupac, for a long time, crippled. My entire family, emotionally and mentally. um, I've been hospitalized multiple times for depression, suicidal ideation, and trauma, PTSD. Um, my, the family that, we were, as we was raised, um, like I said, he was, of the men in our, in our family. And, um, I finally had a child, which meant my son wouldn't have had to grow up the way the other men in my family did without having elder men to, to support them and guide them. And that was taken away. Um, my, both of my children were raised in my grief. So they have trust issues, um, abandonment issues, relationship issues. Because the first 10 years of their lives, I really couldn't get over the loss of, um, one of brothers, um, Tupac. But, Yaffe, who was also in the car and back, was my god brother. And, um, was murdered two months after Tupac died. So again, this day, this, um, night of hunting and murdering. I, you know, to be a prince, um, this may sound weird, but I say all the time that I can believe in Jesus. I can believe that Jesus existed because I know someone who, just, I can describe in the same way that Jesus is described. For me, he has put his life on the line many times to protect others. He dedicated his career to the advancement of his people. He was gentle and kind to women and children. He fed anyone he knew that didn't have. Um, he was truly my shining star, my shining prince. He was my, who God trusted to take care of me. My mother had two children and God gave him to him and him to me as he's supposed to be my life partner. He's supposed to be who I can go to when I needed advice from growing up. I'm now 51 and I spent 30 years without my protection. I believe that if any life matter, if all life matters, for sure, this man's life matter, he died two months after he turned 25. Not just 25, but just turned 25. And where would we be if Malcolm X died at 25? Martin Luther King died at 25. John F. Kennedy died at 25. He had so much promise, intention, intentions for a better world for our people. He had plans. He had manifestos. And actually, he had a theory that if he can get the world to fall in love with him that comes from the gutter, that comes from same streets that other black men come from, that gets judged and get looked at like they're demons and villains because we survive the streets that we come from, he had a theory that if I can get people to fall in love with me and respect me when I know I look and I move just like my brothers and sisters in the street, then maybe one day they'll stop seeing them as animals and villains and demons and they can see love for them as well. It was hard sitting, listening over and over and over again to someone described bit by bit how they hunted Tupac and Marl Shakur down and killed them with his body laying in the gutter in the gutter and he's so much more he's so much more the street father we now um our family we have now found two new brothers um long lost brothers since his passing and it's painful that they don't have the relationship or the stories it's painful that I know I truly feel like if they were around they would be a better example of a big brother for him and he wouldn't have to stray into or strayed into the friends that he had but he was worth it he was worth every ounce to be loved by him to be picked on by him he was special to be teased by him was amazing he would have people ask me often what do I think he would have done been doing right now well in this this final shooting when he was killed he lost a lung in the hospital so I always knew he probably wouldn't go back to rapping but he was such an amazing artist an amazing actor an amazing poet and an amazing orator I truly believe he would have been in government I feel like I truly believe he would have already constructed organizations and homes for lost boys as a matter of he died on a friday and that monday he had an appointment to adopt one of the young people that was in his group this group this group this entourage is not entourage for him once they weren't entourage they were family and he treated them like family their mothers trusted him and to protect their children and this and this is a 25 year old and he was 22 23 he was younger 25 when these mothers trusted their sons with him and he out of that he was a wonderful human being I'm I have suffered through my pain but I you know time goes on to cope him and everybody grows and so I've grown up through it well who would I have been able to be if my protection was still there I would have still been able to be a baby girl and softer and lighter my children and I would have had more happy days than growing up my mother would have been able to enjoy the fruits of her labor the fruits of her work this man that she brought into this life and she protected Tupac and Athani were very similar I always say to John Connor Sarah Connor like she like treated this treated him like it's like you are the one that's going to change the world and he believed her and he believed her and he went out into the world to do that and I believed he would have done it I believed he would have done it with all his mistakes whatever mistakes he's ever made he has done so much more to become a better man to each day each mistake it was or each blunder I don't really want to say mistake but blunder he was so focused in being some not even a he was cocky he did have a big head he did think he was black Jesus he did think that he everything that has happened actually the way that we know to talk today was exactly his plan he wanted to be to have a bottle head he wanted to be known in Africa he wanted to be this was his plan and he would have done such good work with that platform I miss my brother I do I do I do I miss his skin I miss his scars on his head he had a strawberry on his chest I miss the way he ate I miss his recipe of barbecue chicken I miss laugh [00:17:05] Speaker ?: laugh [00:17:05] Speaker 3: he laughed so sloppy he was he was slobber when he laughed he laughed so full and so big we lost something for the whole our whole generation lost something huge september 13 1996 i was the little sister that just wanted to be with my brother i just wanted to be with my brother i want to go i want to go with you i want to go why can't i go and that walked me into all of my suicide attempts i'm grateful that i've made it i'm grateful that i've learned lessons my first day the first time i went to a hospital in arizona it was a beautiful place i wish that my brother knew the tools that i was able to learn around trauma and around carrying old wounds and how to heal them he deserved to walk around feeling better than he did he deserved to not feel like he had the world on his shoulders but my god he did a great job in those 25 years and i'm looking just proud proud proud proud to have been cared for by him you'll see the pictures just about all of the young people you see in those pictures was probably in that entourage in that car he kept he kept those same young boys with him he kept his promise to them and to them today he's still feeding families he's still i mean so many families he was her mother named him tupac and she named him in the hopes that he would follow and those same steps and again he did he would have been the promise the promise of all of our grandparents i think that's all i have to say i do believe that when you take a life like that you deserve every minute every minute of the maximum amount of punishment time to sit down and contemplate what you've done to this world not just to me thank you again [00:20:15] Speaker 1: thank you so much for sharing all these stories with your brother this isn't the side that we got to hear during trial so i appreciate it so much that you were willing to give this to us and i can see how much his love has shaped you i am so sorry you lost him the way that you did thank you thank you [00:20:31] Speaker 2: thank you