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.
But he did plan the shooting in retaliation of the beating of his nephew,” Palal said. Sanft, the defense lawyer, meanwhile, said that after 30 years, investigators still have very little evidence to prove their case. 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.
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