Tupac Shakur murder: trial of ex-gang leader accused of ordering killing begins

Prosecutors accuse Duane Davis of orchestrating 1996 shooting in retaliation for attack by rapper’s entourage

The trial of a former gang leader accused of orchestrating the 1996 killing of rap star Tupac Shakur began in a Las Vegas courtroom on Monday, featuring testimony from a witness to the shooting and a former police officer.

Duane “Keffe D” Davis is on trial for murder for his alleged role in the shooting of Shakur, who died after a drive-by shooting. Prosecutors allege Davis was the “on-the-ground, on-site commander of the effort to kill Tupac” and that he planned the shooting in retaliation for Shakur’s entourage attacking Davis’s nephew.

Davis has pleaded not guilty, though he acknowledged a role in the shooting in a 2019 memoir that authorities have said is key to the case against the 63-year-old. Davis is the only living witness from the car that fired shots at Shakur.

Last week, a jury of six men and 10 women was selected in the trial, which is expected to last about a month.

Davis entered the courtroom in a blue suit and tie and scanned the audience to see who was there before sitting next to his lawyer, Michael Sanft, once the jury was sworn in and seated on Monday morning.

Members of Shakur’s family, including his stepbrother Maurice “Mopreme” Shakur, sat quietly in the front row of the courtroom behind prosecutors.

Binu Palal, the chief deputy district attorney, showed jurors a picture of the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon fight with the date “September 7, 1996” and showed video of Shakur’s entourage beating Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, Davis’s nephew.

“Let’s be clear, Duane Davis did not pull the trigger. But he did plan the shooting in retaliation of the beating of his nephew,” Palal said. “Remarkably, you will learn that from Duane Davis himself.”

Palal showed multiple video clips and played audio of Davis describing his alleged role in the incident and anger toward Shakur for the attack on his nephew.

Sanft, the defense lawyer, meanwhile, said that after 30 years, investigators still have very little evidence to prove their case.

“At the end ​of the day you have to ask yourself: is what they are saying truth ‌or fiction?” Sanft told the jury.

Sanft argued that while Davis spoke about the killing to different law enforcement agencies over the years, including the FBI, they did not follow up because, Sanft said, they did not believe what Davis said was credible.

The trial is a major development in the case that for decades was unsolved.

On 7 September 1996, the rap icon was attacked just off the Las Vegas strip as he headed to an afterparty with the Death Row Records founder, Marion “Suge” Knight. While traveling in the vehicle, a Cadillac pulled up next to Shakur’s vehicle and fired eight shots. Shakur was hospitalized for his injuries and died days later.

Shakur’s killing spawned countless conspiracy theories, and books and documentaries seeking to determine who was responsible for his death. But a fuller picture of what may have occurred that night has emerged in recent years as Davis, who was the last surviving passenger in the Cadillac, began speaking publicly.

Earlier that evening Shakur had attended the Tyson fight at the MGM Grand hotel and afterward was involved in a physical confrontation with Davis’s nephew and several others.

Davis sought retribution for Anderson and allegedly obtained a gun with the intent to “hunt down” Shakur and confront Knight. The incident unfolded quickly, Davis wrote.

“No words were exchanged, the time for talking had passed, the shit was on! Tupac made an erratic move and began to reach down beneath his seat. It was the first and only time in my life that I could relate to the police command to, ‘Keep your hands where I can see them.’ Instead, Pac pulled out a strap, and that’s when the fireworks started. One of my guys from the back seat grabbed the Glock and started bustin’ back,” he wrote.

Prosecutors have said that Davis’s tell-all book and public statements ultimately revived the Las Vegas investigation.

“Had he decided to never write the book, he would not, probably, have ever been prosecuted for the crime,” prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo recently said.

His attorneys sought to exclude the book from trial by arguing that he and his co-author exaggerated in an effort to “falsely place himself at the center of it all for personal gain”. A judge denied the request.

The first witness called by prosecutors was Garry Dale, a former Las Vegas officer who pulled over Shakur and Knight on the night of the shooting. He said he stopped the car because it lacked a license plate on the back, and that the interaction was “congenial”. The officer recounted later riding in the ambulance with Shakur after the shooting, saying he tried to convince the rapper to name his assailants, but that Shakur responded : “No, we’ll take care of it.”

Prosecutors’ second witness was Ingrid Stokes, a woman who was in a car with friends near Shakur’s car at the time of the shooting. Stokes’s car and Shakur’s car were both going to the same club, she said. “We heard the gunshots … all hell broke loose,” she said. Stokes added that she didn’t see who was in the car that fired on Skakur, and that she later spoke to police who were “rude” and “treated us like suspects”.

Stokes said she didn’t think she had any valuable information to share with officers, and that she and her friends had fear at the time about talking to officers and being labeled as “snitches”.

Brent Becker, a former homicide detective from Las Vegas, also took the stand and recounted interviewing Knight after the shooting, saying the record label boss was “very timid” and had three attorneys with him: “He just basically said he didn’t know anything. He didn’t recognize anybody.”

Knight, who is currently in prison over a different case, recently suggested he did not want to cooperate with police, telling ABC News in an interview last week: “This trial has nothing to do with me and if somebody brings me there, it’s gonna hurt whoever brings me there. I promise you that.”

On the stand, Becker further recounted his collaboration with Los Angeles police who helped identify people connected to the beating of Anderson. While the southern California officers shared “interesting” information with Becker about how Shakur’s killing might be connected to other conflicts, Becker said they didn’t have reliable sources who would speak in court: “The problem was it was all from informants. We didn’t have any actual people that would come forward and testify.”

The day ended with testimony from Fred Miller, a former Los Angeles police detective who had investigated Davis in connection with the 1997 murder of Christopher Wallace, the rapper known as Biggie Smalls or the Notorious BIG. Attorneys played a lengthy audio recording of Miller questioning Davis at the time.

Davis was present at a party that Wallace had attended before he was shot, but Davis’s attorney emphasized he was not charged in Wallace’s murder, and the judge told jurors that law enforcement did not believe Davis was involved.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting