Los Angeles, September 30, 2023 – There is a turning point in the most famous cold case in hip-hop history: 27 years later the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur The Las Vegas Police Department has a man arrested accused of shooting the singer on September 6, 1996. Tupac died six days later in the hospital as a result of the shots he received. He was 25 years old and was at the peak of success. Duane Keith “Keefe D” Davis, 60, was arrested while walking near his home. One of the prosecutors involved in the case, Marc DiGiacomo, said prosecutors waited “several months” for the judge to issue the arrest warrant. According to DiGiacomo, Davis was the “baseman” at the scene of the shooting and also the one who “ordered the death” of Shakur.
September 6, 1996 Tupac – born Lesane Parish Crooks in 1971 but renamed the following year after Peruvian revolutionary Túpac Amaru II – was in Las Vegas to watch a boxing match between Mike Tyson and Bruce Seldon. At around 11 p.m., the group accompanying him got into about ten cars with the intention of reaching a nightclub. The singer was on board a black BMW under the direction of Marion “Suge” Knight, owner of Death Row Records, the record label in Los Angeles and point of reference for West Coast hip-hop in the feud with the East Coast at the time. While stopped at a traffic light, A white Cadillac pulled up next to the car in which Tupac was walking and someone inside started shooting, hitting him with four bullets. Davis is the only living witness to the events. He himself admitted this he was in the Cadillac in his 2019 memoir, Compton Street Legend, which effectively reopens the case. Davis said he was sitting in the front seat and put a gun in the back seat, which is where the shots came from. There sat his nephew Orlando Anderson, Shakur’s well-known rival, with whom he had previously argued in a casino. Anderson was later killed in 1998 and as of yesterday, no one had ever been arrested for Tupac’s murder. According to DiGiacomo, it was Davis who came up with the idea of revenge after the fight. The judge denied the arrestee bail. “It is often said that justice delayed is justice denied,” said District Attorney Steve Wolfson. “In this case, justice has been delayed, but it will not be denied.”
Before Since his tragic death, Tupac Shakur has been involved in other controversy. In October 1993 shot two off-duty police officers that they harassed a black man on the street. The charges were later dropped when it was discovered that this was the case The two men were drunk, on drugs and had illegal weapons. However, on the night of November 30, 1994, the rapper was the victim of an ambush: some men shot him five times during an apparent robbery attempt at Quad Recording Studios in Manhattan. Tupac survived the bullets and left the hospital where he was admitted within 24 hours, against doctors’ advice. The attack occurred shortly before the verdict was announced in court on allegations of sexual assault stemming from events in 1993: the rapper left the hospital in a wheelchair to attend the verdict. In February 1995, Tupac was sentenced by the New York Court of Appeals to four and a half years in prison for abusing a fan. He was then released in October of that year after manager Suge Knight posted $1.4 million bail.