The first week of the Tupac Shakur murder trial featured opening statements, witness testimony, and audio recordings in which defendant Duane Keffe D Davis discussed the 1996 shooting with police detectives.
Prosecutors told jurors on Monday (August 17) that Davis had orchestrated the drive-by shooting as “an act of revenge” after Shakur beat up Davis’s nephew. “Duane Davis did not pull the trigger,” prosecutor Binu Palal said. “You will learn that when the opportunity presented itself for retribution, Duane Davis made sure that the shooters were armed and ready to execute their revenge.” Defense attorney Michael W. Sanft countered that Davis’s statements about the shooting were fiction and lacked corroborating hard evidence.
Early testimony included Las Vegas police officer Garry Dale, who witnessed the shooting’s aftermath and rode in the ambulance with Shakur. Dale said Shakur refused to identify the shooter, repeating “We’ll take care of it” multiple times. Subsequent witnesses included Reggie Wright Jr., former head of security at Death Row Records, and James McDonald, a former Bloods gang member.
On Thursday and Friday, jurors heard audio recordings from 2008 and 2009 in which Davis told police detectives that his nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson—the man beaten by Tupac earlier that night—had fired the fatal shots. In the recordings, Davis also suggested that Sean “Diddy” Combs was involved in conversations about the killing. Combs has consistently denied any involvement in Shakur’s death.
Photographer Leonard Jefferson testified Friday that he took the last known photo of Shakur riding in a car with Death Row Records executive Suge Knight before the shooting in Las Vegas that night. The trial is scheduled to resume Monday and continue for several more weeks.
Source: Billboard
