A former gang leader goes on trial Monday in Las Vegas over the decades-old murder of rapper Tupac Shakur, one of America’s most high-profile unresolved murders.
The proceedings, expected to last a month, will likely not make clear who fired the shots that killed the hip-hop legend on the night of September 7, 1996, while he was in Sin City to see a Mike Tyson boxing match.
But prosecutors aim to show that the defendant, Duane “Keffe D” Davis, the onetime leader of the South Side Compton Crips, ordered the killing and provided the gun used to kill Shakur in a drive-by shooting.
Davis, 63, faces life in prison without parole if convicted.
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 died at age 25, was a key figure in a hip-hop rivalry pitting the 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 a California bad boy 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 and starring Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace (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 group South Side Compton Crips, led by Davis, as bodyguards.
After the Tyson fight at the MGM Grand casino, Knight and Shakur beat up Davis’s nephew, Crips member Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, in retribution over an alleged assault of a Death Row employee.
Davis was out for revenge, the prosecution says.
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.
