(Los Angeles) A former gang leader accused of murdering hip-hop star Tupac Shakur 27 years ago appeared before the American justice system for the first time on Wednesday.
Posted at 4:39 p.m.
Las Vegas police on Friday arrested Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a former leader of the South Side Compton Crips, a Los Angeles gang, and charged him with the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur in this Nevada metropolis.
Handcuffed and dressed in blue prison fatigues, Duane “Keffe D” Davis was arraigned in a local court on Wednesday, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal, the gambling capital’s leading news outlet.
Duane Davis, now 60, had long admitted that he was in the white Cadillac from which the four bullets were fired that killed Tupac Shakur at the age of 25.
However, in a book published in 2019, the victim asserted that the shots were fired from the rear of the vehicle while he was sitting in the front.
Duane Davis “was the mastermind of this group of individuals who committed this crime, and he orchestrated the plan that was put in place” to carry it out, Las Vegas police Lt. Jason Johansson argued last week.
Under Nevada law, this indirect role does not prevent him from being charged with murder.
On September 7, 1996, Tupac Shakur, known for the hits “Dear Mama”, “California Love” and “Changes”, accompanied by Suge Knight, the founder of his label “Death Row” and the Mob Piru gang from Los Angeles, took part in a Mike Tyson boxing match in Angeles. Angeles, several members of which were also present.
But Mob Piru was a rival gang of the South Side Compton Crips, then led by Duane Davis. After the fight, members of Death Row Records discovered and beat Duane Davis’ nephew, Orlando Anderson.
According to the Las Vegas Police Department, following this incident, Duane Davis began developing a plan to get revenge on Suge Knight and Tupac Shakur. He is accused of handing a gun to the passengers in the back of the car from where he opened fire on the rap star.