Tupac Shakur’s final moments are revealed in never-before-seen footage that shows him fleeing the MGM Grand after a fight and the bullet-riddled BMW he was shot in when shot-caller Duane “Keffe D” Davis ordered the hit.
Investigators have released never-before-seen photos and videos showing the final moments of rap star Tupac Shakur’s life after the first-ever arrest in connection with the murder.
During the event, police released new details about the arrest of Duane “Keffe D” Davis, the man charged in connection with the rapper’s death in September 1996.
Davis, 60, was taken into custody Friday in Henderson, Nevada, after being indicted by a grand jury. He is charged with murder with a deadly weapon with a gang enhancement.
Witnesses in the case indicated that Davis was a member of the South Side Crips and a known drug trafficker. Shakur was affiliated with gangs including the Bloods and Mob Piru, but was not considered a member.
Davis has spoken openly for years about his apparent role in the rapper’s death in numerous interviews, including in a memoir about his life on the streets.
Grainy surveillance video from the MGM Grand on the night of Tupac’s murder shows the rapper leading an entourage in an attack on rival gang member Orlando Anderson
Shakur, along with Death Row Records Marion ‘Suge’ Knight, lead dozens of their group to the ambush
The rapper and other members of the group can be seen stomping and kicking Anderson
It is believed that this beating prompted Anderson and his friends, fellow South Side Crips, to kill Shakur
Shakur seen with Suge Knight the night of his death
Duane “Keefe D” Davis was taken into custody by Las Vegas detectives Friday morning and has been charged with murder with the use of a deadly weapon
On the night of September 7, 1996, Tupac Shakur and Death Row Records founder Marion ‘Suge’ Knight were in Las Vegas to attend a Mike Tyson heavyweight title match.
Outside of the fight, just after it ended, the men were involved in a brawl with Davis and his cousin, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, with whom Shakur had previously feuded.
The first arrest after the murder of Tupac Shakur in 1996 had its origins in the investigation into the murder of Biggie Smalls.
Later that evening, Shakur was in a BMW that Knight was driving when a Cadillac pulled up next to them and gunfire broke out.
Shakur was shot several times and died a week later at the age of 25. Davis had long been known to investigators as one of four suspects identified early in the investigation. He is not the accused shooter but was described by authorities at a news conference and in court as the leader of the group.
On Monday, investigators revealed that several photos, including four photos of Tupac’s corpse, had been shown to members of the grand jury.
The jury was also shown several interviews Davis has done over the years in which he discusses the murder. The suspect will appear in court for the first time on Wednesday.
Also on Monday, the man driving Tupac at the time of the shooting, Death Row Records CEO Marion “Suge” Knight, said TMZ that he will not cooperate with police and testify in Davis’ trial.
During the press conference, investigators showed the last known photo of Shakur, taken minutes before the shooting
In the same interview, Knight said he does not believe the police story that Davis or his cousin, Orlando Anderson, are guilty of the murder. Knight is serving 28 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter.
During the grand jury hearings, Devonta Lee, who calls himself affiliated with the South Side Crips, said he had heard that the man who pulled the trigger was not Davis or Anderson, but Deandre “Big Dre” Smith.
Lee told the grand jury that Smith was sitting on the side of their car that Tupac was sitting on and that is why he had a clear shot. Smith weighed somewhere between 350 and 400 pounds and Anderson would not have been able to shoot around him, Lee said. KNV.
Davis, now 60, said in his memoir “Compton Street Legend” that he supplied the gun used in the drive-by shooting.
Davis said he was sitting in the front passenger seat of the Cadillac and slid a gun into the backseat, where he said the shots were fired.
He implicated Anderson and said he was one of two people in the backseat.
Anderson died two years later. He denied any involvement in Shakur’s death. DeAndre Smith died in 2004 due to ill health.
Shakur and his entourage beat up Anderson later that night at the MGM Grand after watching a Mike Tyson fight
In this image, Davis is seen in the center of a group of five men, with his cousin Orlando Anderson, who was named as a suspect before he was murdered in 1998, on the far right.
The investigation that resulted in Davis’ arrest began as an investigation into the murder of Shakur’s longtime rival Biggie Smalls, aka Christopher Wallace, in March 1997.
Now retired Los Angeles Detective Greg Kading was assigned to investigate Smalls’ murder and in 2009 he interviewed Davis as a person of interest in the case.
Davis had been at the party at the Peterson Automotive Museum that Wallace had just left when he was shot.
Kading had helped build a federal drug case against Davis to gain leverage to force him to talk to the Los Angeles Police Department, which has so far made no arrests in the Wallace case.
“He confesses his involvement in the Tupac Shakur case, he gives all the details of how he and his co-conspirators killed Tupac,” Kading recalled in an interview with The Associated Press on Friday.
Davis, who had immunity for what he said during his police interrogation but not for what he said outside of it, subsequently revealed many of the same details in documentaries, on podcasts and in a tell-all 2019 memoir that would breathe new life into the police force. Las Vegas police investigation leads to grand jury indictment.
“He basically talked himself into jail,” Kading said.
Shakur was in a BMW driven by Death Row Records founder Marion ‘Suge’ Knight in a convoy of about ten cars
Davis revealed in the Netflix docuseries that they got into their Cadillac to find Tupac after the loss, knowing he would be performing at the 662 Club that night.
In Nevada, a suspect can be charged with a crime, including murder, if you assist someone in committing the crime.
The grand jury also voted to add a sentencing enhancement to the gang activity charge, which could add up to an additional 20 years if convicted.
Hundreds of pages of transcripts released Friday detail the first month of the grand jury proceedings, which began in late July with testimony from former associates of Davis, friends of Shakur and a series of retired police officers involved early in the case goods.
Their testimony painted a picture for jurors of a deep, escalating rift between Shakur’s music label Death Row Records and Bad Boy Records, which had ties to Davis and represented Wallace.
“It created the whole West Coast-East Coast rivalry that defined the hip-hop scene in the mid-1990s,” one of Davis’ former collaborators testified.
In a statement Friday, Sekyiwa “Set” Shakur, the rapper’s sister, described the arrest as a victory, but in a measured tone.
‘This is undoubtedly a crucial moment. “The silence surrounding this case over the past 27 years has spoken loudly in our community,” she said. “It is important to me that the world, the country, the justice system and our people recognize the gravity of the death of this man, my brother, my mother’s son, my father’s son.”
She did not praise the authorities who worked on the case.
“I know there have been a lot of people who didn’t believe the murder of Tupac Shakur was important to this police department,”
Sheriff Kevin McMahill said this at a news conference on Friday. “I’m here to tell you that that just wasn’t the case. That wasn’t the case then, and it isn’t the case now.’
He added: “Every victim, every life lost, matters and remains a priority for this police department.