In the opening day of Tupac Shakur’s murder trial, prosecutors painted former gang leader Duane “Keffe D” Davis as someone seeking revenge before masterminding the drive-by shooting that killed the iconic rapper.
Witnesses took a Las Vegas jury back in time three decades ago to the night Shakur was shot, when gangs had a hold over ’90s hip-hop and distrust in police led to a lack of cooperation – and one of the most famous cold cases of the last century.
Davis, 63, is charged with Shakur’s murder.
Prosecutors allege that although Davis did not fire the gun that killed the influential rapper, he allegedly orchestrated the killing. Davis has denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty.
What to know as a gang leader goes on trial in Tupac’s murder
In opening arguments, the prosecution portrayed Davis as the ringleader of the group responsible for the shooting – and point to a memoir he co-authored where he wrote in detail about the night of the shooting.
Davis’ attorneys called the narrative “fiction”, dubbing the case a product of a flawed-decades-long investigation. Davis has distanced himself from the memoir, saying he didn’t write all of it and parts were fictionalised to sell more copies.
Davis, wearing a navy suit and blue tie, sat with his defence team as they questioned why no one had been arrested for nearly three decades and asked why “no one corroborates any of this”.
“What facts do they have after 30 years?” his attorney Michael Sanft questioned.
The prosecution’s first witness was Garry Dale, who was working for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department at the time of the shooting in September 1996.
The officer detailed riding in an ambulance with Shakur after he’d been shot. He said the rapper refused to offer any information on what happened and who had shot him. “We’ll take care of it,” Shakur said, according to the officer’s testimony.
At the core of the case is East Coast vs West Coast rap rivalries and turf wars between the Bloods and the Crips street gangs that were immortalised in rap lyrics and news reports in the 1990s.
Police have long said said a lack of cooperation in the case led to dead ends in their investigation. Members of the rapper’s entourage, though, have accused authorities of initially treating them like suspects and failing to follow important leads.
Throughout the day on Monday, prosecutors painted that picture for the jury, explaining that there were no formal criminal charges in the shooting because in the world of guns and gangs “silence means survival”.