Tupac Shakur: Ex-gang leader pleads not guilty to orchestrating rapper’s murder
A former California gang leader has pleaded not guilty to orchestrating rapper Tupac Shakur’s drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in 1996.
Duane Keith “Keffe D” Davis, 60, is the only person still alive who was in the vehicle from which shots were fired.
He is also the only person ever charged in connection with the case.
The charges against him were prompted by his own descriptions in recent years about orchestrating the deadly attack, prosecutors said.
Tupac Shakur in 1993 Pic: Michael Ferguson/MediaPunch/IPx
The judge said prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty, but Davis could be jailed for life if convicted.
Attorney Ross Goodman, who represented Davis until he lost a legal bid that barred him from hiring a private lawyer, previously said prosecutors lack witnesses and key evidence, including a gun or vehicle, for the murder.
Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson declined to respond to Mr Goodman’s criticism of the evidence, saying that a jury will weigh the results of the police investigation.
Read more:
Tupac: The story of a rapper ‘always meant for something great’
The suspect will appear in court again on Tuesday for the trial to be scheduled.
Duane Davis Pic: Las Vegas Police Department via AP
Davis, originally from Compton, California, was arrested on 29 September outside a home in a Las Vegas suburb.
He remains in custody without bail.
The indictment alleges Davis obtained and provided a gun to someone in the back seat of a Cadillac before the car-to-car gunfire killed Shakur and wounded rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight at an intersection just off the Las Vegas Strip.
Knight, now 58, is in prison in California, serving a 28-year sentence for the death of a Compton businessman in 2015.
Court-released image of Tupac and Knight in the car the pair were shot in
Shakur died a week after the shooting, aged 25. The identity of his murderer remains one of hip-hop music’s most enduring mysteries.
Prosecutors allege his killing in Las Vegas came out of competition between East Coast members of a Bloods gang sect and West Coast groups of a Crips sect, including Davis, for dominance in a musical genre dubbed “gangsta rap”.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
What happened to rapper Tupac Shakur?
The grand jury was told the shooting was retaliation for an earlier fight at a Las Vegas casino involving Shakur and Davis’ nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson.
Prosecutors said Davis implicated himself in the killing in multiple interviews and a 2019 tell-all memoir that described his life leading a Crips sect in Compton.
Davis has said he obtained a .40-calibre handgun and handed it to Anderson, a member of Davis’ gang, in the back seat of a Cadillac, though he didn’t identify Anderson as the shooter.
Anderson, then 22, denied involvement in Shakur’s killing and died two years later in a separate shooting in Compton. The other back seat passenger and the driver of the Cadillac are also dead.
Shakur is largely considered one of the most influential and versatile rappers of all time. He had five number one albums, was nominated for six Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.
It’s 5.30am, but the car park outside a laundrette in south central Los Angeles is already bustling.
A woman is setting up a stand selling tacos on the pavement and the sun is beginning to rise behind the palm trees.
A group of seven women and two men are gathered in a circle, most wearing khaki green t-shirts.
The leader, a man named Francisco “Chavo” Romero, begins by asking how everyone is feeling. “Angry,” a few of them respond. “Proud of the community for pushing back,” says another.
Ron, a high school history teacher, issues a rallying cry. “This is like Vietnam,” he says. “We’re taking losses, but in the end we’re going to win. It’s a war.”
Francisco ‘Chavo’ Romero leads a volunteer group, attempting to warn people ahead of ICE raids
This is what the resistance against Donald Trump’s immigration policy looks like here. In the past month, immigration and customs enforcement agents – known as ICE – have intensified their raids on homes and workplaces across Los Angeles.
Since the beginning of June, nearly 2,800 undocumented immigrants have been arrested in the city, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The previous monthly high was just over 850 arrests in May this year.
Police use tear gas against protesters, angry at a recent immigration raid at a farm in Camarillo, California. Pic: AP
Videos have circulated online of people being tackled to the ground in the car park of DIY shops, in car washes and outside homes. The videos have prompted outrage, protests and a fightback.
“Chavo” and Ron belong to a group of organised volunteers called Union del Barrio. Every morning, a group of them meet, mostly in areas which have high immigrant populations.
The day I meet them, they’re in an area of LA which is heavily Latino. Armed with walkie talkies to communicate with each other, megaphones to warn the community and leaflets to raise awareness they set out in cars in different directions.
A volunteer from Union del Barrio shows Sky’s Martha Kelner how they try to stay one step ahead of ICE agents
They’re looking for cars used by ICE agents to monitor “targets”.
“That vehicle looks a little suspicious,” says Ron, pointing out a white SUV with blacked-out windows, “but there’s nobody in it”.
An elderly Latino man is standing on a street corner, cutting fruit to sell at his stall. “He’s the exact target that they’re looking for,” Ron says. “That’s what they’re doing now. The low-hanging fruit, the easy victim. And so that is proving to be more successful for their quotas.”
This man, selling fruit on a street corner in LA, is a potential target of immigration agents
In the end, it turns out to be a quiet morning in this part of LA, no brewing immigration operations. But elsewhere in the city, dawn raids are happening.
ICE agents are under pressure from the White House to boost their deportation numbers in line with Donald Trump’s campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigration.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
In June, tear gas and rubber bullets were fired at protestors demonstrating against immigration raids
Maria’s husband Javier was one of those arrested in LA. He came to the United States from Mexico when he was 19 and is now 58.
The couple have three grown-up children and two grandchildren. But Javier’s work permit expired two years ago, according to Maria and so he was living here illegally.
Maria’s husband Javier was arrested after his work permit expired
She shows me a video taken last month when Javier was at work at a car wash in Pomona, an area of LA. He is being handcuffed and arrested by armed and masked ICE agents, forced into a car. He is now being held at a detention centre two hours away.
“I know they’re doing their job,” she says, “but it’s like, ‘you don’t have to do it like that.’ Getting them and, you know, forcing people and pushing them down on the ground. They’re not animals.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
US troops accused of ‘political stunt’ after park raid
Maria wipes away tears as she explains the impact of his absence for the past four weeks. “It’s been so hard without him,” she says. “You feel alone when you get used to somebody and he’s not there any more. We’ve never been apart for as long as this.”
The family have a lawyer and is appealing for him to remain in the US, but Maria fears he will be sent back to Mexico or even a third country.
Maria fears her husband, who has lived in the US for nearly 40 years, will be sent back to Mexico
“I don’t know what to say to my grandkids because the oldest one, who is five was very attached to his papas, as he calls him. And he’s asking me, ‘When is papa coming home?’ and I don’t know what to say. He’s not a criminal.”
The fear in immigrant communities can be measured by the empty restaurant booths and streets that are far quieter than usual.
People in LA are being asked to report sightings of ICE officials so others can be warned
I meet Soledad at the Mexican restaurant she owns in Hollywood. When I arrive, she’s watching the local news on the TV as yet another raid unfolds at a nearby farm.
She’s shaking her head as ICE agents face off with protesters and military helicopters hover overhead. “I am scared. I am very scared,” she says.
All of her eight employees are undocumented, and four of them are too scared to come into work, she says, in case they get arrested. The process to get papers, she says, is too long and too expensive.
Read more from Sky News:
Farmer first to die during ICE raids
Trump warns comic over citizenship
Soledad, who owns a Mexican restaurant, plans to hide her illegal workers if immigration officials arrive
“They call me and tell me they are too afraid to come in because immigration is around,” she says.
“I have to work double shifts to be able to make up for their hours, and yes, I am very desperate, and sometimes I cry… We have no sales, and no money to pay their wages.”
There is just one woman eating fajitas at a booth, where there would usually be a lunchtime rush. People are chilled by the raids.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Soledad says she plans to hide her illegal workers if immigration officials arrive.
“I’ve told them, get inside the fridge, hide behind the stove, climb up where we have a space to store boxes, do not run because they will hunt you down.”
The White House says they’re protecting the country from criminals. ICE agents have been shot at while carrying out operations, their work becoming more dangerous by the day.
The tension here is ratcheting up. Deportation numbers are rising too. But the order from Donald Trump is to arrest even more people living here illegally.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike