Duane “Keffe D” Davis is a Compton gang member who was indicted in connection with the 1996 homicide of hip-hop legend Tupac Shakur. He has been arrested, according to the Associated Press.
According to the AP, Davis was indicted by a Nevada grand jury on one count of murder with a deadly weapon, Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo said in court on September 29, 2023. Davis was the “on-ground, on-site commander” who “ordered the death” of Shakur, the AP reported DiGiacomo saying. He was arrested that same morning while walking near his Nevada home, the AP reported.
According to Brittanica, Tupac Shakur died on September 13, 1996, “six days after an unknown gunman in a white Cadillac shot him four times in the chest at a stoplight in Las Vegas.” The murder has remained unsolved for decades.
“Las Vegas police have made an arrest in the 1996 drive-by shooting of hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur, AP sources say,” the Associated Press wrote on X on September 29, 2023.
BREAKING: Las Vegas police have made an arrest in the 1996 drive-by shooting of hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur, AP sources say.
The AP’s tweet did not mention Duane Davis, but the wire service’s story identified Davis as the suspect in the murder of the music icon. Davis has spoken out for years about the Shakur homicide, admitting he was an eyewitness, and his deceased nephew Orlando Anderson has been previously suspected of being the triggerman, according to The Los Angeles Times. Over the years, he has dropped some of rap’s biggest names, including Sean “Diddy” Combs, LA Weekly reports.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis Has Admitted to Being in the Gunman’s Car During the Murder of Tupac Shakur
According to the Associated Press, Davis is not a new suspect. In fact, he “admitted in interviews” and in a book, “Compton Street Legend,” that he was “in the Cadillac where the gunfire erupted during the September 1996 drive-by shooting.”
In July, a home in Las Vegas connected to Davis was raided by police who were investigating Shakur’s murder, according to an earlier AP article.
CNN reported that the home is owned by Davis’ wife, Paula Clemons, and “police found a copy of the memoir while searching” it in July 2023.
According to that story, Davis, 60, is the uncle of a man suspected in connection with Shakur’s murder. That man, named Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, was a rival of Shakur’s who “died two years later in a shooting in Compton, California.”
Davis is a self-described “gangster,” the AP reported. In an interview with BET networks five years ago, Davis said he was going to speak publicly because he had been diagnosed with cancer and said he was sitting in the front seat of the Cadillac when Shakur was shot, with his nephew sitting in the back, where the shots were fired from.
He did not explicitly name Anderson as the shooter, though, saying he needed to follow the “code of the streets,” according to that interview.
According to the AP, Davis wrote in his book that he spoke to authorities about Shakur’s murder in 2010, when he was “facing life in prison on drug charges.”
“They promised they would shred the indictment and stop the grand jury if I helped them out,” he wrote, according to AP.
2. The Los Angeles Times Previously Reported That Tupac Shakur ‘Was Attacked by the Southside Crips’ Over a Gang-Related Beating
In 2002, The Los Angeles Times conducted an extensive investigation into the lack of arrests in Shakur’s murder. The newspaper reported that Las Vegas police attributed this fact to “witnesses in Shakur’s entourage” refusing to cooperate with the investigation.
In that article, The Times revealed the motive, per court documents and interviews with gang members and investigators.
“Shakur was attacked by the Southside Crips, a Compton gang, to avenge the earlier beating of one of their members. The Times also reported that the man who had been beaten fired the fatal shots,” the newspaper’s investigation found. That person was Davis’ nephew, Orlando Anderson.
However, the Times investigation also found a series of problems with the police probe. “They failed to follow up with a member of Shakur’s entourage who witnessed the shooting and told police he might be able to identify one or more of the assailants,” was one of the angles highlighted by The Times. That person was Yafeu “Kadafi” Fula, the Times noted.
“Tupac got the same treatment as any other homicide here,” Las Vegas police Sergeant Kevin Manning told The Times. “But you know what? We can’t do it alone. We rely on cooperative citizens to step forward and help us solve crimes. And in Tupac’s case, we got no cooperation whatsoever.”
The Times article also accused New York rapper Notorious B.I.G., a Shakur rival who was later also killed, of providing the murder weapon and offering to pay Crips if they managed to kill Shakur.
3. Tupac Shakur Was Accused of Beating Orlando Anderson, a Rival Gang Member, in a Hotel Lobby
Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, killer of Tupac Shakur in 1996, is killed in a gang-related shootout in California. He was 23.
According to the Times’ investigation, the man whom Shakur had beaten was Anderson, Davis’ nephew. The Guardian reported that Shakur said, “You from the South?” Shakur was shot a few hours later.
On the evening of September 7, 1996, Shakur was leaving the MGM Grand Hotel with Marion “Suge” Knight, the controversial record producer, after a Mike Tyson fight.
He attacked Anderson, 21, “a member of the Southside Crips,” in the lobby, according to The Times, which reported that Shakur and Knight were affiliated with a rival Compton gang called the Mob Piru Bloods.
In a seemingly never-ending cycle of gang violence, Anderson had beaten a member of the Bloods at a shopping mall several weeks before.
Four Crips were inside the car from which gunfire emanated, killing Shakur, The Times reported.
4. Orlando Anderson Died in a Shooting at a Car Wash
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According to The Times, Anderson was killed May 29, 1998, “in a drug-related shooting at a Compton carwash.” According to the Hip Hop Museum, “tempers flared after Orlando confronted Michael Stone about money owed, and all four were fatally hit in a gunfight.”
The Hip Hop Museum reported that Orlando Tive “Baby Lane” Anderson “was born August 13, 1974, to Harvey Lee Anderson, and Charlotte Davis.”
The site reported that Anderson denied murdering Shakur. According to The Guardian, Anderson was “an unemployed father of three children, raised in one of the most run-down neighborhoods of Los Angeles.”
Anderson’s half-brother Pooh told The Guardian that Anderson “Never caused a problem. One thing about him, he was always involved in positive things. Always, always, always.”
5. Duane Keith ‘Keffe D’ Davis Once Accused Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs of Offering Him $1 Million to Kill Tupac Shakur
GettyP Diddy
According to LA Weekly, Duane Keith “Keffe D” Davis once accused Sean “Diddy” Combs of offering him $1 million to kill Shakur and Knight. Comb has not been formally accused in connection with Shakur’s murder.
The accusations were unearthed by LA Weekly in a recording in Los Angeles police archives, according to LA Weekly, which reported that police “have been following Keffe D for the last year, gathering enough evidence about the PCP ring he’s been running to put him away for 25 years to life” in an effort to get him to talk about who killed Shakur.
“I’m a dangerous motherf***** without smoking weed, dude. I get mad easy, you know what I’m saying?” Davis told a detective, according to LA Weekly.
In that interview, he implicated Anderson, saying, according to LA Weekly, “He leaned over, and Orlando rolled down the window, and popped him. If they would have drove on my side, I would have popped them. But they was on the other side.”
That article says that Davis grew up in Compton and knew Knight growing up. He said that Combs never ended up giving him any money, the article reports.
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