The Tupac Shakur murder trial has started, and the court has heard about how “all hell broke loose” on the night of the rapper’s shooting.
At the trial, former gang leader Duane “Keffe D” Davis is charged with the murder of Shakur in September 1996.
The rapper was gunned down on September 7 that year, after a car drove alongside him and opened fire as he travelled from a Mike Tyson boxing match. He died from his injuries six days later.
While he did not pull the trigger directly, Davis is accused of planning the murder, as a result of his nephew Orlando Anderson being involved in an altercation with Shakur just hours beforehand.
Davis has denied the accusations and entered a not guilty plea.
At the opening day of the murder trial, the prosecution alleged that Davis was the leader of the group responsible for the shooting, and highlighted how details of the night were shared in a memoir he co-wrote.
“Let’s be clear, Duane Davis did not pull the trigger. But he did plan the shooting in retaliation of the beating of his nephew,” the jury was told by Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal (as per BBC News). “Remarkably, you will learn that from Duane Davis himself.”
"On September 7, 1996, Tupac Shakur came to Las Vegas to attend a Mike Tyson fight."
Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo is giving the prosecution opening statement in Duane "Keffe D" Davis' murder trial right now. https://t.co/BSlVjQwHsypic.twitter.com/51gS35CNbd
— Meghann Cuniff (@meghanncuniff) August 17, 2026
In his memoir, which was published in 2019, Davis claimed that he was a passenger in the car that opened fire on Tupac, and he also claimed that he gave the gun used in the murder to his nephew, Anderson, who shot the rapper.
Davis’ legal team called the claims “fiction” and said that the accusations against their client come as a result of a “biased, sloppy and incomplete” police investigation over the past three decades. The defendant has also distanced himself from the aforementioned book, claiming that sections were fictionalised to make the memoir sell better.
In court, the prosecution brought out former member of Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Garry Dale, who was on the force at the time of the killing. In his witness statement, Dale recalled how he rode in an ambulance with Shakur after the shooting, and said that the rapper refused to share any details about the situation or the people involved.
The defence also argued that the prosecution has relied on “unreliable people with criminal records, financial motivations and inconsistent statements” in their arguments, and claimed that the witnesses brought forward have changed their stories over time.
Another person who testified on the opening day of the trial was Ingrid Stokes, who allegedly ran into Tupac and Death Row Records co-founder Marion “Suge” Knight – who was in the car with the rapper at the time of the attack – on the night of the shooting.
Tupac Murder Trial: Ex-Vegas cop says the rapper wouldn't rat out the shooter. pic.twitter.com/NQ5zciZH7i
— TMZ (@TMZ) August 17, 2026
She claimed in her testimony that she and her friend tried to drive behind the rapper to see if they could go to the same club that they believed his car was headed to. On their journey, however, they allegedly noticed “ a car behind us, trying to get in front of us”.
Stokes also told the court that they stopped at a light and pulled over due to concerns about the car behind them, and “heard the gunshots” as they had their “head[s] down, taking our seat belts off”.
She also told the court that from there, “all hell broke loose”.
Opening statements were heard yesterday (Monday August 17), and the trial is set to continue over the next few weeks.
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