Suspect charged in 1996 slaying of Tupac Shakur
LAS VEGAS » A self-described gangster who police and prosecutors say masterminded the 1996 shooting death of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas made his first court appearance Wednesday on a murder charge.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 60, stood shackled, wearing a dark-blue jail uniform and plastic orange slippers. He was scheduled to be arraigned on the charge Wednesday, but the hearing was cut short after he asked Clark County District Judge Tierra Jones to postpone the hearing while he retains counsel in Las Vegas.
Mopreme Shakur, the rapper's stepbrother, wasn't in court Wednesday but told The Associated Press that he's been following developments in the case from his home in Los Angeles, even as he and his family are “trying to manage our expectations.”
“Young Black men often deal with delayed justice because we're often viewed as the criminals,” he said. “So justice has been delayed for quite some time — in spite of all the eyes, all the attention, despite the celebrity of my brother.”
Davis was arrested Friday near his home in suburban Henderson. A few hours later, a grand jury indictment was unsealed in Clark County District Court charging him with murder. Davis denied a request from the AP for an interview from jail, where he's being held without bond.
Grand jurors also voted to add sentencing enhancements for the use of a deadly weapon and alleged gang activity. If Davis is convicted, that could add decades to his sentence. In Nevada, a person can be convicted of murder for helping another person commit the crime.
Los Angeles-based attorney Edi Faal told the AP in a brief phone call after the hearing that he is Davis' longtime personal lawyer and is helping him find a Nevada attorney.
“I have worked with him for more than two decades,” Faal said. “But at this point I do not have a comment.”
Davis had been a longknown suspect in the case, and publicly admitted his role in the killing in interviews ahead of his 2019 tell-all memoir, “Compton Street Legend.”
“There's one thing that's for sure when living that gangster lifestyle,” he wrote. “You already know that the stuff you put out is going to come back; you never know how or when, but there's never a doubt that it's coming.”
Davis' own comments revived the police investigation that led to the indictment, police and prosecutors said. In mid-July, Las Vegas police raided Davis' home, drawing renewed attention to one of hip-hop music's most enduring mysteries.
Prosecutors allege Shakur's killing stemmed from a rivalry and competition for dominance in a musical genre that, at the time, was dubbed “gangsta rap.” It pitted East Coast members of a Bloods gang sect associated with rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight against West Coast members of a Crips sect that Davis has said he led in Compton, California.
Tension escalated in Las Vegas the night of Sept. 7, 1996, when a brawl broke out between Shakur and Davis' nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, at the MGM Grand hotel-casino following a heavyweight championship boxing match won by Mike Tyson.
Knight and Shakur went to the fight, as did members of the South Side Crips, prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo said last week in court.