Ex-gang leader’s account of Tupac Shakur killing is fiction, defense lawyer says
The defense attorney representing a former Los Angeles-area gang leader accused of killing hiphop music icon Tupac Shakur in 1996 in Las Vegas said Tuesday that his client’s accounts of the killing were fiction and prosecutors lacked key evidence to obtain a murder conviction.
“He himself is giving different stories,” attorney Carl Arnold told reporters outside a courtroom after a brief status check with his client, Duane “Keffe D” Davis, in front of a Clark County District Court judge. Davis’ trial is scheduled for Nov. 4.
“We haven’t seen more than just his word,” Arnold said of Davis’ police and media interviews since 2008 in which prosecutors say he incriminated himself in Shakur’s killing — including Davis’ 2019 tell-all memoir of life leading a street gang in Compton, Calif.
Prosecutor Binu Palal did not immediately comment outside court about Arnold’s statements. Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson has said evidence against Davis was strong and it would be up to a jury to decide the credibility of Davis’ accounts.
Arnold said his client wanted to make money with his story, so he embellished or outright lied about his involvement in the car-to-car shooting that killed Shakur and wounded rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight at a traffic signal near the Las Vegas Strip in September 1996.
Knight, now 59, is serving 28 years in a California prison for an unrelated fatal shooting in the Los Angeles area in 2015. He was not called by prosecutors to testify before the grand jury that indicted Davis last year.
Arnold said Davis would not testify at trial, but he intended to call Knight to testify. The defense attorney said police and prosecutors lack proof that Davis was in Las Vegas at the time of Shakur’s killing, and don’t have the gun and car used during the shooting as evidence.
“We’ve seen video of everybody else here. Where’s video of him?” Arnold said of Davis. “There’s just nothing saying that he was here.”
Davis has been jailed on $750,000 bail since his arrest in September. Arnold said Tuesday that Davis has been unable to raise the 10% needed to obtain a bond to be released to house arrest.
Davis, 60, is originally from Compton. Police,
an prosecutors nd say he is the only person still alive who was in the car from which shots were fired.
Davis pleaded not guilty in November to first-degree murder. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
In his book, Davis wrote that he was promised immunity from prosecution when he told authorities in Los Angeles what he knew about the fatal shootings of Shakur and rival rapper Christopher Wallace six months later in Los Angeles. Wallace was known as The Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie Smalls.
Shakur had five No. 1 albums, was nominated for six Grammy Awards and was inducted in 2017 into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He received a posthumous star last year on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
On Sept. 7, 1996, Shakur and Knight, owner of Death Row Records, were driving to a nightclub with an entourage behind them on East Flamingo Road. They were in town for the Mike Tyson-bruce Seldon heavyweight championship boxing match at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Tyson was to meet them later at Club 662, where Shakur and other rap artists were scheduled to perform.
They never made it.
A light-colored late-model Cadillac pulled up next to Knight’s rented BMW 750 and a gunman in the back seat opened fire on the passenger side. Shakur was hit three times.
He died six days later at University Medical Center.
Despite investigations by both Las Vegas and Los Angeles police as well as federal agencies, plus myriad theories involving conflicts, no one had been arrested in the killing until Davis’ arrest last year.
Las Vegas police have previously investigated Orlando Anderson, a reputed gang member and Davis’ nephew, in connection with the slaying. Anderson died in May 1998 in a drug-related shootout at a Compton car wash.
Anderson was identified as having been involved in a physical altercation with Knight, Shakur and his bodyguards on the night of the fatal shooting. Anderson, 21, was a member of the Southside Crips. Shakur and Knight were affiliated with a rival Compton gang, the Mob Piru Bloods; Shakur’s bodyguards were also members of the Bloods.
While Davis isn’t the accused gunman, he’s been described by police and prosecutors as the ringleader in Shakur’s slaying. In Nevada you can be charged with a crime, including murder, if you help someone commit the crime.
“Duane Davis was the shot caller for this group of individuals that committed this crime,” Lt. Jason Johansson, a homicide detective with Las Vegas Metro Police, said at a news conference shortly after Davis’ arrest in September 2023, “and he orchestrated the plan that was carried out.”
Sun staff reports added to this story.