Rapper Tupac Shakur was shot dead in an act of gang revenge ordered by a mobster who later boasted of it, jurors heard Monday, as one of America’s most anticipated trials got under way, 30 years after the murder.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a one-time leader of the South Side Compton Crips, one of a patchwork of gangs that ran parts of Los Angeles in the 1990s, ordered the killing after his nephew had been beaten by a rival mob, prosecutor Binu Pilal told a Las Vegas court.
“On September 7, 1996, Tupac Shakur publicly, on camera, participated in a humiliating beating of Duane Davis’s nephew, Orlando Anderson,” he said.
“Then, two and a half hours later… Tupac is gunned down in a drive-by shooting from a white Cadillac in an act of revenge.”
Pilal said Davis did not pull the trigger, but had handed the gun to someone sitting in the back seat of his car and ordered that person to shoot the rapper.
In repeated interviews — with law enforcement, with media and ultimately in an autobiography — Davis confessed to his part in the murder, Pilal said.
“Over the years, in private interviews, in public statements, and even in private calls, Duane Davis has repeatedly told us over and over again about the anger he felt, and his own role in the revenge drive-by shooting of Tupac Shakur.
“And now, nearly 30 years later, we’re going to ask you to finally hold Duane Davis accountable,” he told the jury.
Davis, 63, denies murder and other charges. If convicted, he faces possible life in prison without parole.
His lawyer, Michael Sanft, said prosecutors had no real proof that Davis was culpable, painting a picture of a confused police investigation that repeatedly failed to turn up a definitive version of events.
“What they are telling you, they’re representing to be a fact when it really is a fiction, and it’s up to you to determine what the facts are,” he told jurors.
East Coast vs West Coast
The killing of Shakur, also known as 2Pac, is one of America’s most celebrated cold cases, prompting endless debate among music fans over who did it and why.
The rapper, who was just 25 when he died, was a key figure in a hip-hop rivalry pitting the US East Coast against the West Coast.
Known for hits like “California Love” and “All Eyez on Me,” Shakur — the son of a Black Panther — was raised in Harlem and Baltimore, but quickly became the epitome of California hip hop when he signed with Los Angeles-based Death Row Records.
The trial will revisit the battle between Death Row, founded by Marion “Suge” Knight, and Bad Boy Records, the East Coast label created by Sean “Diddy” Combs, which signed Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace — who was murdered in March 1997.
Prosecutors say Death Row Records was protected by Mob Piru, a Los Angeles gang that was part of the wider Bloods alliance. Knight was affiliated with the group.
Bad Boy Records had hired the rival South Side Compton Crips, led by Davis, as bodyguards.
Knight and Shakur were in Las Vegas to watch boxer Mike Tyson fight, when they beat up Davis’s nephew, Crips member Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, in retribution over an alleged assault of a Death Row employee.
Later that night, a white Cadillac carrying Davis, Anderson and others pulled up beside Shakur’s car in Las Vegas. Shots were fired from the Cadillac, and Shakur was fatally wounded.
The investigation sputtered for decades because of a lack of evidence, but the case was revived when Davis’s memoirs were published in 2019.
In the book, he recounted that he was in the front seat of the Cadillac and had handed a pistol to those in the back seat.
Davis has since backtracked, insisting the claims were bluster and were created by a ghostwriter to sell books.