Las Vegas police have reportedly arrested a man for the deadly 1996 drive-by shooting of rapper Tupac Shakur. According to Bloomberg, it’s a long-awaited break in the case that has stumped investigators since the hip-hop star was gunned down on the Vegas Strip 27 years ago.
Duane “Keefe D” Davis was arrested on the morning of Friday, September 29th. Bloomberg reports that the exact charge — or charges — aren’t known at this time. He’s expected to be indicted later on Friday. Davis has long been in the eyes of investigators, and he even apparently admitted in interviews and in his 2019 memoir that he was in the Cadillac where shots were fired at Tupac in September of 1996. Shakur was just 25 years old when he was gunned down.
The outlet reports that the arrest comes just a couple of months after Las Vegas police raided Davis’ wife’s home in July. Documents reportedly said police were searching for items “concerning the murder of Tupac Shakur. Police are said to have collected multiple computers, a cellphone and a hard drive, a Vibe magazine featuring Shakur, several .40-caliber bullets, two “tubs containing photographs” and a copy of Davis’ 2019 memoir.
In the book, called Compton Street Legend, Davis reportedly says he broke his silence over Tupac’s killing in a meeting with federal and local authorities in 2010. At the time, Bloomberg says Davis was 46 years old and facing life in prison on drug charges when he agreed to speak with them.
“They promised they would shred the indictment and stop the grand jury if I helped them out,” he reportedly wrote in the book. He added that he was one of the “last living witnesses” to the shooting.
Back in 2018, Davis reportedly admitted in a public interview on BET that he was inside the Cadillac the night of the attack. He also implicated his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, by saying he was one of two people in the back seat where shots were being fired. Anderson denied any involvement and was killed in a shooting two years later in Compton, California.
Shakur was in a BMW 750iL driven by Death Row Records founder Suge Knight in a convoy of about 10 cars when he was gunned down at a red light on the night of September 7, 1996. The shooting took place shortly after a casino brawl earlier in the evening involving Shakur and others.