The two hip-hop luminaries and rivals — Shakur’s shooting in Las Vegas and Smalls’ shooting in Los Angeles six months later — have remained culturally inseparable, Duane Cave Duane Keffe D. Davis found himself involved in both investigations.
On Friday, Davis was arrested and charged with murder, with prosecutors saying he ordered and planned Shakur’s murder.
Now-retired Los Angeles police detective Greg Kading was assigned to investigate the killing of Smalls, whose legal name was Christopher Wallace. Davis was interviewed in 2009 as a person of interest in the case. Davis was attending a party at the Peterson Automotive Museum that Wallace had just left when he was shot.
Kadin helped build a federal drug case against Davis to force him to talk to Los Angeles police, who so far have not made any arrests in the Wallace case.
“He admitted his involvement in the Tupac Shakur case and provided all the details of how he and his co-conspirators killed Tupac,” Kadin recalled in an interview with The Associated Press on Friday.
Davis has immunity, but not immunity, over what he said during his interview with police, which he went on to reveal in documentaries, podcasts and a revealing 2019 memoir Featuring many of the same details, this memoir will breathe new life into the story. Las Vegas police investigated and helped a grand jury indict him.
“He basically talked himself into going to jail,” Kadin said.
Investigators have long known that Davis was one of four suspects identified early in the investigation. He was not the alleged shooter, but authorities described him at news conferences and in court as the group’s leader. In Nevada, if you help someone commit a crime, the defendant may be charged with a crime, including murder.
Davis, now 60, said in his memoir “The Compton Street Chronicles” that he provided the gun used in the drive-by shooting.
Davis was arrested early Friday while walking near his suburban Las Vegas home, hours after prosecutors announced in court that a Nevada grand jury had indicted him on one count of murder with a deadly weapon. This self-proclaimed “gangster”. He is due in court next week.
The grand jury also voted to increase the sentence on a murder charge related to gang activity, which could have seen him receive up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Hundreds of pages of transcripts released Friday provide a glimpse into the first month of grand jury proceedings, which began in late July and include former colleagues of Davis, friends of Shakur and early participants in the case. A group of retired police officers provided testimony. Their testimony painted for jurors a deep and escalating rift between Shakur’s music label, Death Row Records, and Bad Boy Records, which has ties to Davis and represents Wallace.
“It sparked the whole West Coast/East Coast” rivalry that largely defined the hip-hop scene in the mid-1990s, a former colleague of Davis testified.
Davis declined an interview request from jail Friday, and court records did not list an attorney who could comment on his behalf.Called and texted Davis and his wife on Friday and over the course of several months raided their home July 17 in nearby Henderson and failed to return.
In a statement on Friday, the rapper’s sister, Sekyiwa “Set” Shakur, described the arrest as a victory but struck a cautious tone.
“This is certainly a critical moment. The silence surrounding this case for the past 27 years is speaking loudly in our community,” she said. “It’s important to me that the world, the country, the justice system and our people recognize the gravity of the death of this man, my brother, my mother’s son, my father’s son.”
She stopped short of praising authorities for handling the case.
“I know a lot of people don’t believe that the murder of Tupac Shakur is important to this police department,” Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at a news conference Friday. “I’m here to tell you that’s not the case. It wasn’t that way in the past and it’s not like that today.”
He added: “Every victim, every life lost matters and remains the police department’s top priority.
On the evening of September 7, 1996, Tupac Shakur and Death Row Records founder Marion “Suge” Knight were in Las Vegas to watch Mike Tyson’s heavyweight championship match. After the game, the men got into an argument off the court with Davis and his nephew, Orlando “Baby Ryan” Anderson, with whom Shakur had previously feuded.
Later that night, Shakur was in the BMW driven by Knight when a Cadillac pulled up next to them and shots rang out.
Shakur was shot multiple times and died a week later at the age of 25.
Davis said in his memoir that he was sitting in the front passenger seat of the Cadillac and stuffed a gun into the back seat, where he said he fired the gun.
He blamed Anderson, saying he was one of two people in the back seat.
Anderson died two years later. He denied any involvement in Shakur’s death.
At the time of the rapper’s death, his fourth solo album, All Eyez on Me, was still topping the charts and had sold approximately 5 million copies.Nominate Won six Grammy Awards, Shakur is still widely regarded as one of the most influential and versatile rappers of all time.
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Associated Press writers Andrew Dalton and Ryan Pearson in Los Angeles contributed.
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