LAS VEGAS. A self-proclaimed gangster who police and prosecutors say orchestrated the 1996 Las Vegas shooting of rapper Tupac Shakur appeared in court for the first time Wednesday on a murder charge.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 60, was handcuffed and wearing a dark blue prison uniform and orange plastic slippers. He was scheduled to be arraigned on that charge Wednesday, but the hearing was canceled after he asked Clark County District Judge Tierra Jones to postpone the hearing while he receives legal representation in Las Vegas.
Mopreme Shakur, the rapper’s half-brother, was not in court Wednesday but told The Associated Press that he had been following developments in the case from Los Angeles, where he lives. He noted that he and his family are cautious about their expectations.
“Young black people often experience delays in justice because we are often viewed as criminals,” he said. “So justice has been delayed for quite some time, even though all eyes were there, all attention, despite my brother’s fame.”
Davis was arrested last Friday near his home in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson. Hours later, the Clark County District Court grand jury indictment on murder charges was quashed. Davis declined an AP request for an interview from jail, where he is being held without bail.
Grand jurors also voted to add aggravating circumstances to the charges of use of a deadly weapon and alleged criminal activity. If Davis is convicted, it could add decades to his sentence. In Nevada, a person can be convicted of murder if they aid another person in committing the crime.
Los Angeles-based attorney Edi Faal told the AP in a brief phone call after the hearing that he was Davis’ longtime attorney and was helping him find a lawyer in Nevada.
“I have worked with him for more than two decades,” said Faal. “But at the moment I have no comment.”
Davis was a known suspect in the case for years and publicly admitted his role in the murder in interviews before publishing his memoir “Compton Street Legend” in 2019.
“One thing is for sure when living this gangster lifestyle,” he wrote. “You know that the things you spent will come back. You never know how or when, but there is no doubt that they will arrive.”
Davis’ words reignited the police investigation that led to the charges, police and prosecutors said. In mid-July, Las Vegas police raided Davis’ home, drawing renewed attention to one of hip-hop’s most enduring mysteries.
Prosecutors allege that Shakur’s murder stemmed from a rivalry and competition for dominance in a musical genre then called “gangsta rap.” The rivalry pitted East Coast members of the Bloods gang group, associated with rap mogul Marion “Suge” Knight, against West Coast members of the Crips gang group, which Davis said he led in Compton, California.
Tension rose in Las Vegas on the night of September 7, 1996, when a fight broke out at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino after a championship boxing match between Shakur and Davis’ nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson was won.
Knight and Shakur took part in the brawl, as did members of the South Side Crips, prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo said in court last week. “And (Knight) brought his entourage with him, which included members of the Mob Piru gang.”
After the fight at the casino, Knight drove a BMW with Shakur in the passenger seat. The car was stopped at a red light near the Las Vegas Strip when a white Cadillac pulled up on the passenger side and shots were fired.
Davis had said he was sitting in the passenger seat of the Cadillac and handed a .40-caliber handgun to his nephew, who was sitting in the back seat, from where he said the shots were fired.
Shakur died a week later at age 25 after being shot multiple times. Knight was hit by bullet fragments but survived. Now 58, he is serving a 28-year prison sentence for running over and killing a Compton businessman outside a hamburger stand in January 2015.
Of the four people in the Cadillac that night, Davis is the only one still alive. Anderson was killed in a shooting in Compton in May 1998. Before he died, Anderson denied involvement in Shakur’s murder. The other backseat passenger, DeAndre “Big Dre” or “Freaky” Smith, died in 2004. The driver, Terrence “Bubble Up” Brown, was killed in a shooting in Compton in 2015.
Police Chief Kevin McMahill, who leads the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, acknowledged criticism of his agency’s slowness in investigating Shakur’s murder.
“That just wasn’t the case,” said McMahill, who called the investigation “important to this police department.”