LAS VEGAS (AP) — Man is charged with murder in 1996 Tupac Shakur He knew the severity of his arrest last week near his home on the outskirts of Las Vegas, according to police body camera footage released Friday.
“So what did they get you for, man?” An officer asks Duane “Keffe D” Davis.
“The biggest case in Las Vegas history,” Davis says, recalling the date Shakur was shot — “June 7th.” September 1996”.
Police and prosecutors allege Davis was the mastermind of the drive-by shooting near the Las Vegas Strip that killed Shakur at age 25.
Now, more than 27 years later, Davis sat with handcuffs around his wrists and ankle shackles in the back seat of a Las Vegas police car headed toward a county jail where he remains held without bond.
“I’m not worried,” Davis told the officer. “I didn’t do that (expletive).”
The police videos, totaling more than an hour of footage, show Davis being arrested around sunrise on September 29 as he walked through his otherwise quiet neighborhood.
“Hey, Keffe. “Metro Police,” an officer said. “Come here.”
Davis, holding a water bottle, cooperated as he was patted down and handcuffed next to an unmarked police vehicle.
The 60-year-old was a long-known suspect in the case. In interviews leading up to his tell-all 2019 memoir “Compton Street Legend,” he publicly admitted his involvement in the murder. His arrest came two months after the police raided his houserenewing interest in one of hip-hop’s most enduring mysteries.
In the videos, Davis recalled the July 17 raid and how he peered over a gate at the same time as a SWAT officer. He said his arrest that morning was much more low-key.
As they drove on the highway to police headquarters to question Davis, he asked if he had been followed the night before. The officer says no.
“So why didn’t you all bring the media?” Davis said.
The officer asked why the police would bring the media.
“That’s what you all do,” Davis said.
The self-proclaimed gangster from Compton, California, has not yet entered a plea in the case and declined a request from The Associated Press for a prison interview. His longtime Los Angeles attorney, Edi Faal, told the AP he had no comment on behalf of Davis.
Davis told police that he moved to the Las Vegas area in January for his wife’s work. But the audio is blacked out when the police later ask him what he has been doing since the move.
In an indictment unsealed Friday in Clark County District Court, Davis is accused of orchestrating Shakur’s murder and providing the weapon to his nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson. Anderson, who denied involvement in Shakur’s murder, died in 1998.
Grand jurors also voted to increase sentencing for use of a deadly weapon and suspected gang activity. If Davis is convicted, it could add decades to his sentence.
In Nevada, a person can be convicted of murder for helping another person commit the crime.
Davis’ first appearance in court This week was cut short when he asked the judge for a postponement while he retains his attorney in Las Vegas. He is due back in court on October 19.
Authorities say Shakur’s killing stemmed from a rivalry and competition for dominance in a musical genre then called “gangsta rap.” It pitted members of a West Coast Crips sect, which Davis said he led in Compton, against members of an East Coast Bloods gang sect linked to rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight, the founder of Death Row Records, the music label that represented Shakur at the time of his death.
Antczak reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writer Felicia Fonseca in Flagstaff, Arizona, contributed.