Jury selection begins in Duane Davis Tupac Shakur murder trial
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Duane "Keffe D" Davis, the former South Side Compton Crips leader, stood trial in Las Vegas over the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur, one of the most notorious unsolved killings in American music history. Prosecutors alleged Davis ordered the killing and supplied the gun used in a drive-by shooting that struck Shakur as he travelled through the city after watching a Mike Tyson boxing match; Davis, 63, pleaded not guilty and denied any involvement, insisting from prison that there was no evidence against him. He faced life imprisonment without parole if convicted, and the trial reopened long-standing questions about the 1990s rivalry between Death Row Records and Bad Boy Records.
Prosecutors argued that after Death Row's Suge Knight and Shakur assaulted Davis's nephew, Crips member Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack on a Death Row employee, Davis sought revenge by ordering the shooting and providing the weapon fired from a white Cadillac that pulled alongside Shakur's car. The case had stalled for decades until Davis's own 2019 memoir described his presence in the vehicle and his handing over of a pistol, without naming who fired the fatal shots; everyone else who was in the car that night has since died. Those admissions led to his arrest in September 2023, more than 25 years after Shakur's death at the age of 25, and the trial itself was expected to run for about a month without necessarily identifying who actually pulled the trigger.
- Duane "Keffe D" Davis tried in Las Vegas over Tupac Shakur's 1996 murder
- Prosecutors say he ordered the killing and supplied the gun
- Davis denies involvement; faces life without parole if convicted
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Duane "Keffe D" Davis is going on trial in Las Vegas, accused of orchestrating the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur, one of the most famous unsolved killings in American music history. Davis, a former leader of the South Side Compton Crips gang, has pleaded not guilty and denies any involvement. Jury selection is expected to take about a week, ahead of a trial likely to run for a month.
The case centres on a violent falling-out between two rival hip-hop labels in the 1990s, Death Row Records and Bad Boy Records, and the gangs associated with them. Prosecutors say the shooting was payback after Shakur and Death Row boss Suge Knight assaulted Davis's nephew, and that Davis arranged the killing and provided the gun used in the drive-by attack that fatally wounded Shakur in Las Vegas in September 1996.
The case went unsolved for decades until Davis himself described being in the car that night in a 2019 memoir, without naming who fired the shots. Everyone else believed to have been in the vehicle has since died, and it was Davis's own account that led to his arrest in 2023 and this trial.
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Originally published by The Guardian as “Trial of former gang leader to begin over Tupac Shakur murder”.