Tupac Shakur’s alleged killer Duane Keith ‘Keffe D’ Davis pleads not guilty in the 1996 Las Vegas shooting

A former Southern California street gang leader pleaded not guilty Thursday to orchestrating a drive-by shooting that killed Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas in 1996.

Duane Keith ‘Keffe D’Davis, the only person still alive who was in the vehicle from which the shooting occurred and was the only person ever charged with a crime in the case, stood in handcuffs before Clark County District Judge Tierra Jones.

Special public defenders Robert Arroyo and Charles Cano represented Davis in court Thursday.

Davis lost his bid to hire defense attorney Ross Goodman. Two weeks ago, Goodman had said prosecutors had no witnesses important evidence, including a weapon or vehicle, for the murder committed 27 years ago.

Before entering his plea Thursday, Davis stood in dark blue prison garb and answered a short series of questions, telling the judge that he had spent “a year in college,” was not under the influence of drugs, prescription drugs or alcohol, and that he understood that he was accused of murder.

Tupac Shakur was shot in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas on September 13, 1996. At the time of his death, he was 25 years old and was described as one of the “most influential rappers of all time.”

Davis, 60, is originally from Compton, California. He was arrested on September 29 outside a home in suburban Henderson, where Las Vegas police are located a search warrant was issued July 17, bringing renewed attention to one of hip-hop music’s most enduring mysteries.

Davis remains jailed without bail, has not testified before the grand jury that indicted him and refused to leave jail to speak to The Associated Press.

The indictment claims Davis obtained a gun and gave it to someone in the backseat of a Cadillac before the car-on-car gunfire that fatally wounded Shakur and the rap music mogul Marion ‘Suge’ Knight at an intersection near the Las Vegas Strip. Shakur died a week later. He was 25.

Knight, now 58, is in prison in California, serving a prison sentence 28 years in prison for the 2015 death of a Compton businessman. He did not respond to messages from his attorneys seeking comment about Davis’ arrest.

Prosecutors allege Shakur’s murder in Las Vegas stemmed from competition between East Coast members of a Bloods gang and West Coast groups of a Crips cult, including Davis. dominance in a musical genre called ‘gangsta rap.’

The grand jury was told that the September 7, 1996 shooting in Las Vegas was in retaliation for a brawl hours earlier at a casino on the Las Vegas Strip involving Shakur and Davis’ cousin, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson.

Prosecutors told a grand jury that Davis implicated himself in the murder in multiple interviews and in a tell-all 2019 memoir that detailed his life while living a Crips cult in Compton.

Davis has said he obtained a .40-caliber handgun and handed it to Anderson, a member of Davis’ gang, in the backseat of a Cadillac, although he did not identify Anderson as the shooter.

Anderson, then 22, denied involvement in Shakur’s murder and died two years later in a shooting in his hometown of Compton. The other backseat passenger and the driver of the Cadillac are also dead.

In his book, Davis wrote that he told authorities in 2010 what he knew about the murder of Shakur and gang rival. Notoriously BIGwhose legal name is Christopher Wallace, to protect himself and 48 of his Southside Compton Crips gang members from prosecution and the possibility of life sentences.

Wallace, also known as Biggie Smalls, was shot and murdered in Los Angeles in March 1997, six months after Shakur’s death.

Shakur is largely considered one of the most influential and versatile rappers of all time. He had five number 1 albumsused to be nominated for six Grammy Awardswas inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 and received a posthumous star this year on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.