Tupac murder trial: All hell broke loose night of rapper’s shooting, witness says
By BBC, August 18, 2026On the opening day of Tupac Shakur’s murder trial, prosecutors painted former gang leader Duane “Keffe D” Davis as someone seeking revenge before masterminding the drive-by shooting that killed the iconic rapper.
Witnesses took a Las Vegas jury back in time by three decades, to the night Shakur was shot, when gangs had a hold over ’90s hip-hop and distrust in police led to a lack of cooperation.
Davis, 63, is charged with Shakur’s murder – one of the most famous cold cases of the last century.
Prosecutors allege that although Davis did not fire the gun that killed the influential rapper, he orchestrated the killing. Davis has denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty.
In its opening arguments, the prosecution portrayed Davis as the ringleader of the group responsible for the shooting – and pointed to a memoir he co-authored in which he wrote in detail about the night of the shooting.
“Let’s be clear, Duane Davis did not pull the trigger. But he did plan the shooting in retaliation for the beating of his nephew,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal said, referring to an incident that took place earlier in the day when Shakur was shot.
“Remarkably, you will learn that from Duane Davis himself,” Palal told the jury.
Davis’s lawyers called the narrative “fiction”, dubbing the case a product of a flawed decades-long investigation. Davis has distanced himself from the memoir, saying he didn’t write all of it and that parts were fictionalised to sell more copies.
Davis, wearing a navy suit and blue tie, sat with his defence team as they questioned why no one had been arrested for nearly three decades and asked why “no one corroborates any of this”.
“What facts do they have after 30 years?” his lawyer Michael Sanft asked.
The murder case had largely gone cold until public statements made by Davis himself, who published a memoir in 2019. In it, and in various interviews, Davis has claimed he was a passenger in the vehicle that fired into Shakur’s car that night.
He said in the book that he gave the gun used in the murder to his nephew, Anderson, who shot the rapper.
His lawyers have argued the book is fiction and shouldn’t be used as evidence in a criminal trial relating to a case from three decades ago, but a judge ruled it could be used in court.
Missing police reports
His defence team has pointed to missing police reports, disputed evidence and “biased, sloppy and incomplete” detective work.
They alleged prosecutors relied on “unreliable people with criminal records, financial motivations and inconsistent statements”.
The defence also argued witnesses changed their stories over time and were influenced by money, media attention or information supplied by investigators.
Opening statements began on Monday after a week of jury selection. Over the next few weeks, witnesses, experts, investigators and possibly even some celebrity witnesses are slated to give evidence about what occurred that night.
Prosecutors allege that Davis acquired a gun and organised two vehicles to travel to a Las Vegas club, one of them a white Cadillac, which carried three other men, including his nephew, Anderson.
Palal told the jury that the men decided to “get some booze and go back to the Vegas strip and party”, prosecutors said. On their journey, however, they saw a caravan of cars – and spotted Shakur and Death Row Records co-founder Marion “Suge” Knight in one of the vehicles.
Palal alleges that was when Davis and the others in the Cadillac decided to make a U-turn and confront Shakur and Knight. Davis, who was in the passenger seat, he said, passed a gun to Anderson, who fired into Shakur’s car.
Ingrid Stokes, who was present at the time of the shooting, testified that she and her friends were driving around Las Vegas that night, before they ran into Knight and Shakur.
Her friend knew Knight, and he suggested the women follow them to a club, Stokes said. They started to drive through Vegas, but “there was a car behind us, trying to get in front of us,” Stokes recounted.
At one point, they stopped at a light and pulled over to switch drivers due to concerns about the other vehicle.
“We were head down, taking our seat belts off, when we heard the gunshots,” Stokes testified. “All hell broke loose.”