An admitted former street gang leader was arrested on Friday on a charge of murder in the Las Vegas shooting death of hip-hop star Tupac Shakur nearly three decades ago, a long-unsolved crime that became a defining moment in the history of rap music.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis, who police said was long suspected and began implicating himself in a series of public statements in recent years, was taken into custody outside his home a day after a grand jury in Clark County, Nevada, returned an indictment against him.
The indictment was presented during a brief hearing on Friday to a judge who ordered Davis, 60, to remain jailed without bond until an initial court appearance set for next Wednesday.
Davis was charged with one count of murder with a deadly weapon for his alleged role in leading a group of men to kill Shakur in a 1996 drive-by shooting near the Las Vegas strip.
Authorities described Davis as the “shot caller” of a hurried plot to avenge the beating of his nephew, Orlando Anderson, inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena by Tupac Shakur and members of his entourage on the night of Sept. 7, 1996, not long before the shooting.
Davis “orchestrated the plan that was carried out to commit this crime,” Metropolitan Police Department Lieutenant Jason Johansson said at a news conference.
It was not immediately clear whether Davis had secured legal representation.
Police showed hotel security footage of several men kicking and punching a person they identified as Anderson near a bank of elevators before security personnel broke up the altercation. One of those seen attacking Anderson was identified as Marion “Suge” Knight, co-founder and then-CEO of Los Angeles-based Death Row Records, which produced Tupac Shakur’s records.
