Duane Davis, known in the Los Angeles gang world as Keffe D, pleaded not guilty this Thursday in a Las Vegas court to the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur. Davis, 60, was arrested by Nevada City police on September 29 and accused of being one of the men who planned the attack on the popular rapper on September 7, 1996. Tupac died days later in the hospital. To this day, the identity of his murderer is unknown in what is one of the biggest mysteries in rap.
The Las Vegas authorities have set out to fill this gap in the history of the successful genre. Officers safely detained Davis outside his home. The authorities have placed their hopes in the statements that Keffe D has made on the night of the event in interviews and in his memories, Compton Street Legend (2019). Davis admits there having been inside the vehicle from which the bullets that killed the artist of All Eyez on Me. Not only that, he claims to have been the one who bought the .40 caliber pistol, which he handed over to Orlando Anderson, another gang member. It is believed that this was the one who opened fire on Tupac. Anderson, then 22, was killed in a shooting in Compton in 1998.
Davis appeared this Thursday before Judge Tierra Jones to deny his responsibility in the homicide. The gang member appeared in court dressed in a blue jumpsuit and answered several questions that the togada asked him. He claimed to have dropped out of college after a year and stated that he was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
The case against Davis represents a great challenge for the Prosecutor’s Office. The prosecution has to walk an uphill road to prove that the gang member is the mastermind of Tupac’s murder, committed after a fight in Las Vegas between members of the Crips and Bloods gangs, antagonists on the streets of Los Angeles.
Attorney Ross Goodman, who was trying to represent Davis in court, told reporters a few days ago that the defense was simple. “There is no weapon, there is no car and there is not a single witness from 27 years ago,” he stated in one of the preliminary hearings. Davis has been in a Clark County jail since he was arrested and is not eligible for bond.
Goodman spent two weeks in negotiations to become Keffe D’s defense representative. This Wednesday, November 1, Goodman told reporters following the case that there was no agreement between him and his client. Judge Tierra Jones had to decide between appointing a public defender or ordering an investigation into the defendant’s finances to determine if he could hire a private lawyer. To speed things up, she opted for the first option. Public defenders Robert Arroyo and Charles Cano became his advisors this Thursday.
At Thursday’s hearing, Judge Jones told Davis that the prosecution, led by Steve Wolfson, is not seeking the death penalty. If found guilty of the crime of homicide, the man will spend the rest of his life in prison. Next Tuesday his trial date will be set.
This Thursday Wolfson avoided questions from journalists, who questioned him about the strength of his case and the lack of evidence. The district attorney limited himself to saying that the last word will be the members of the jury, who must take a position on the police findings. Davis’ arrest, nearly three decades after the crime was committed, has forced a review of clues overlooked by Las Vegas authorities.
The indictment against Davis comes from a grand jury. In this process, prosecutors were able to present the case to a group of citizens, who agreed with the authorities. Davis, however, did not appear at that closed-door trial. The prosecution framed Tupac’s murder in the violent clash of street gangs from the East and West of the United States, a moment that was reflected in popular culture through the gangster rap. Christopher Wallace, better known as Biggie Smalls or Notorious BIG, was shot to death in Los Angeles in March 1997, six months before Tupac. That crime has not been solved either.
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