LAS VEGAS — Duane “Keffe D” Davis, one of the last surviving witnesses to the Las Vegas drive-by shooting of the hip-hop superstar Tupac Shakur in 1996, was indicted for murder on Friday, marking the first arrest in Shakur’s death. Here’s a glimpse at the hours that led up to the fatal gunfire.
Shakur and Suge Knight, the head of his record label, Death Row Records, arrived in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996, with an entourage that included Shakur’s fiancee, Kidada Jones, as well as his cousins and friends, to watch a heavyweight title fight between Mike Tyson and Bruce Seldon.
Shakur and Knight took their seats in the front row at the MGM Grand Garden Arena around 8:30 p.m.
Shortly after that, the brawl broke out. Less than two minutes later, Tyson knocked out Seldon in the first round to claim the WBA Heavyweight championship.
AFTERMATH OF THE BATTLE AND ANOTHER BATTLE
Shakur and Tyson, who were friends, embraced in joy just off the arena floor at approximately 8:40 p.m., shortly after the fight concluded.
Shakur, Knight, and their entourage engaged in a brawl at 8:50 p.m. in the hotel and casino area just outside the arena with a group that included Davis and his nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, with whom Shakur had previously clashed. Las Vegas police stated that Davis and Anderson were members of the Southern California-based gang South Side Compton Crips, rivals of the Knight’s Blood-affiliated Mob Piru.
Police say surveillance footage shows Shakur and Knight striking and kicking Anderson near a lift bank.
Anderson, who was slain in a 1998 gang shooting unrelated to Tupac’s death, was long suspected of being responsible for his death.
Shakur, Knight, and their entourage departed the MGM Grand shortly before 9 p.m.
From approximately 9 p.m. to 11 p.m., the precise timeline of Shakur’s night is still being determined, but he was eventually obligated, along with Tyson and Knight, to make a late appearance at Club 662, which Knight owned. Before proceeding to Knight’s Las Vegas home, the Death Row entourage left the MGM Grand and stopped at the adjacent Luxor Hotel and Casino, where Jones was staying.
Police alleged at a news conference on Friday that Davis would spend this time acquiring a weapon to use in retaliation for the casino brawl.
A BLACK BMW, A WHITE CADILLAC, AND FIREARMS
Shakur was a passenger in Knight’s black BMW when it was stopped by police near the Las Vegas Strip at approximately 11 p.m. for playing music too loudly and not properly displaying license plates. Shakur and Knight joked with the officers the license plates were discovered in the trunk and were not cited.
The BMW stopped at the intersection of Flamingo Road and Koval Lane, a block from the Strip, at 11:15 p.m.
“We were on our way to Club 662,” Malcolm Greenidge, a lifelong friend of Tupac Shakur who traveled to Las Vegas with him and was traveling in a car behind the BMW, testified to the grand jury that indicted Davis. “Several women approached from the passenger side. Mr. Shakur started conversing with the women. We were unable to hear what he was saying. We believed he was most likely summoning them to the club.”
A white Cadillac approached stealthily. Davis has stated in interviews and his 2019 autobiography that he was one of the males in the automobile. According to a press conference held by police on Friday, he was sitting in the passenger seat and passed the gun he had obtained to one of the men in the rear.
Greenidge told the grand jury, “After the women left, another car pulled up alongside Mr. Shakur and Mr. Knight, and an arm emerged from the back window and began firing.”
The gunman discharged over a dozen rounds. Two of the four bullets struck Shakur in the torso. A bullet fragment grazed Knight in the temple, but he sustained only minor injuries. Knight is currently serving a 28-year manslaughter sentence in an unrelated California case.
Shakur was transported to University Medical Centre at 11:20 p.m. after police and paramedics arrived.
Shakur would have a lung removed and remain on a respirator in intensive care in the following days. Six days later, on September 13, he perished. He was 25 years old.
SOURCE – (AP)
