By Jessica Hill
Contributing Writer
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A prosecutor said Aug. 17 that while few have been willing to speak about the 1996 killing of Tupac Shakur, the suspect in his murder — Duane “Keffe D” Davis — is the “one person who has a hard time being silent.”
“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,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal told jurors at the start of Davis’ Las Vegas trial. “Remarkably, you will learn that from Duane Davis himself.”
Davis, 63, is charged with murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang in Shakur’s death. He pleaded not guilty. His lawyer in the defense opening called the prosecution’s narrative “fiction.”
The trial, which continues Aug. 18 is expected to last four to six weeks. If convicted, Davis faces life in prison.
Palal showed jurors video of Shakur’s entourage attacking Davis nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, outside a Mike Tyson boxing match at the MGM Grand hours before the shooting on Sept. 7, 1996.
Davis spent the next two hours planning how to get even, said Palal, and Shakur was gunned down “in an act of revenge.”
In a 2008 interview with a federal task force investigating the killing of Shakur’s rival the Notorious B.I.G., Davis instead talked about the Shakur shooting, describing handing a gun to the men in the back seat of a white Cadillac that fired on Shakur and Suge Knight, the hip-hop mogul who was driving a black BMW with Shakur sitting next to him.
As prosecutors played audio of Davis explaining the moment Shakur was shot, members of Shakur’s family, including his stepbrother Maurice “Mopreme” Shakur, sat quietly in the audience, staring ahead.
Palal told jurors Davis held onto a visceral hatred for Shakur for decades that drove him to speak.
He said as early as 1998, the defendant talked to the FBI and admitted he had been in Las Vegas the night of the shooting. He spoke again in 1999 to the FBI and said again he was in Las Vegas at that time but denied responsibility.
In 2009, he admitted to his role in the killing in an interview with Las Vegas police, Palal said.
“And now 30 years later, we’re going to ask you to finally hold Duane Davis accountable,” Palal said.
He also showed jurors the 2019 memoir that Davis co-wrote, “Compton Street Legend,” that the prosecution will use and that the defense fought to keep out of the trial, along with several of the defendant’s interviews.
Davis watched the presentation wearing a blue suit and tie sitting next to his attorney.
“The state has just told you what they believe is the evidence in this case,” Sanft said to jurors in his opening. “What they are telling you, they are representing as fact, when it’s really fiction.”
Sanft said Davis wasn’t previously charged for the 1996 killing because law enforcement knew that he was “full of crap.”
“There’s no facts,” he said, to back up what Davis said in his book.
The defense attorney also pointed to missing documents in the original investigation and distrust between Los Angeles and Las Vegas police departments. He pointed out that the Compton Police Department was shut down in September 2000 due to corruption.
He called one detective’s work “biased,” “sloppy” and “incomplete.” He said retired Detective Clifford Mogg read portions of Davis’ book into the record as if it were fact but said Mogg didn’t verify claims in it.
Palal outlined the origins of the feud, saying it began in Compton, with rival gangs Mob Piru and South Side Compton Crips. He said Knight employed Mob Piru gang members at the Death Row Records and Shakur, while not in a gang himself, was associated with Mob Piru. Davis was a prominent member of South Side Compton Crips.
Within 24 hours of the shooting, Davis and the rest of the group were back in Compton, driving home like nothing happened, Palal said.
But in the weeks after the killing, a war erupted in Compton in which three people were killed and multiple people including an 11-year-old girl were shot, Palal said, because “the streets knew the South Side Crips were responsible for this murder.” But those who knew what happened didn’t come forward with information. “In this world silence means survival,” Palal said.
The long-unsolved drive-by shooting gripped the hip-hop community, partly because no one was charged until Davis was indicted in 2023.
The other three men riding in the Cadillac have all died in the years since.
“When he says he’s the only person who can tell what happened, he’s right,” Palal said.
Shakur remains a cultural icon and is considered one of the most influential and versatile rappers of all time, despite dying at 25. He was nominated for six Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.
Garry Dale, a bicycle officer at the time for Las Vegas police who stopped Shakur and Knight, was the first of the 35 to 45 witnesses the prosecution plans to call at the trial expected to last about a month.
Jessica Hill writes for the Associated Press. Associated Press writers Ty Oneil, John Seewer and Andrew Dalton contributed to this report.
