Former high-ranking gang member, Duane Davis, known as Keffe D, has been charged in connection with the 1996 murder of legendary rapper, Tupac Shakur, in Las Vegas. Davis is scheduled to present a request for house arrest to a judge on Tuesday, as he awaits his June trial date.
Davis’ court-designated legal team asserts their client, now 60, is in poor health and presents no risk to public safety. They also argue that Davis harbors no intent to evade facing trial, and are suggesting a bail amount of no more than $100,000.
Davis has consistently refuted the murder charges lodged against him. The grim news around his arrest on September 29 had its roots in a search warrant served months earlier in July at his residence in suburban Henderson.
While Davis has been detained without bail since then, this makes him the first and only person to face legal consequences tied to a crime that besides claiming Tupac’s life, also injured influential rap producer, Marion ‘Suge’ Knight.
Discussions around Davis’ involvement in the crime are marked by his statements since 2008. As per these statements given during police interviews, there seems to be sturdy evidence suggesting Davis was the mastermind behind the drive-by shooting in September 1996. As for Knight, he is currently serving time in a California state prison, serving a 28-year sentence for an unrelated incident in which a business professional from Compton lost his life in 2015.
At present, Davis is housed at the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas, a facility known for regularly recording in-mate communication. Should he be proven guilty in the Shakur case, he is likely facing life imprisonment at a penal institution in Nevada. Probing information retrieved from an October telephone call recording, Davis’ son claims his father gave a signal, a ‘green light,’ for the hit to take place on Shakur.
However, court documents make no mention of Davis ordering any form of physical attack, nor do they settle on any individuals connected to the case suffering any physical harm. Davis’ counsel, led by attorney Robert Arroyo, shared with the press that in their view, there was no evidence suggesting witnesses had been subjected to threats or identified.
Davis, originally hailing from Compton, California, consistently upholds his immunity from prosecution. This assurance, he claims, was given in 2008 by FBI agents and officers from the Los Angeles Police Department during their probe into Shakur’s killing in Las Vegas, and the murder of another famed rapper, Christopher Wallace, better known as The Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie Smalls, in Los Angeles in March 1997.
Yet, Davis’ counsel insists any narration given by their client of Shakur’s demise should be viewed as an attempt to keep audiences entertained and generate income, rather than as factual accounting of events.