Tupac murder trial: 'All hell broke loose' night of rapper's shooting, witness says

What the report says

A Las Vegas jury has begun hearing the long-delayed murder trial of Duane “Keffe D” Davis, who is charged in the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur. According to the Nile Post’s source material, prosecutors say Davis, a former gang leader, helped plan the drive-by shooting in retaliation after a fight involving his nephew earlier that night. Davis has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers reject the case as unreliable and built on incomplete police work.

At the center of the prosecution’s opening case is the claim that Davis orchestrated events from the passenger seat of a white Cadillac, while another man fired the shots. Prosecutors are pointing jurors to statements Davis made over the years, including a memoir and interviews in which he discussed being in the vehicle tied to the shooting. The defense says the book contains fictionalized material and should not be treated as straightforward evidence.

Witness testimony on the first day took the court back to the night of September 7, 1996, after a boxing match in Las Vegas. One witness described hearing shots after cars converged near Shakur’s vehicle, while a former police officer said Shakur refused to identify who had attacked him before later dying from his injuries. The case matters because it revives one of hip-hop’s most famous cold cases and revisits the role of gang violence and witness silence in the 1990s music scene.