Almost 30 years after Tupac Shakur was killed in a Las Vegas shooting, the long-running case is finally heading to trial, with former gang leader Duane “Keffe D” Davis facing a murder charge.
Davis, 63, who was once associated with the South Side Compton Crips, is expected in a Las Vegas courtroom on Monday for proceedings that could last about a month. He has denied the charge and, if found guilty, could receive a life sentence without parole.
The case centres on the September 7, 1996, shooting that left Shakur critically wounded. The rapper had just attended a Mike Tyson fight at the MGM Grand and was travelling through Las Vegas when a gunman opened fire in a drive-by attack. Shakur died six days later at the age of 25.
While the identity of the person who fired the fatal shots may remain unclear, prosecutors intend to argue that Davis was involved in organising the attack and provided the weapon used.
Shakur, popularly known as 2Pac, remains one of the most influential figures in hip-hop history. His death became one of the music industry’s most enduring mysteries, particularly because it happened during a bitter period of rivalry between the American rap scenes on the East and West coasts.
The conflict involved Death Row Records, founded by Marion “Suge” Knight, and Bad Boy Records, the label created by Sean “Diddy” Combs and associated with rapper Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace. Wallace was also killed in Los Angeles in March 1997, just months after Shakur’s death.
The rivalry extended beyond the music industry and involved rival street groups. Death Row had links to Mob Piru, which was affiliated with the Bloods, while Davis was a leader of the South Side Compton Crips, who prosecutors say had connections to the Bad Boy camp as security.
Events at the MGM Grand shortly before Shakur’s shooting are also expected to feature prominently in the case. Shakur and Knight had confronted and assaulted Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, Davis’s nephew and a member of the Crips.
Prosecutors have linked that confrontation to the shooting, saying it was carried out in retaliation for an earlier alleged assault involving someone connected to Death Row Records.
The upcoming trial is therefore expected to revisit the gang rivalry, the confrontation at the MGM Grand and the events that ultimately led to Shakur being fatally shot on the Las Vegas Strip.
