Tupac Shakur's alleged killer Duane Keith 'Keffe D' Davis pleads not guilty in the 1996 Las Vegas shooting

A erstwhile Southern California thoroughfare pack leader pleaded not blameworthy Thursday to orchestrating a drive-by shooting that killed Tupac Shakur successful 1996 successful Las Vegas.

Duane Keith 'Keffe D' Davis, nan only personification still alive who was successful nan conveyance from which shots were fired and nan only personification ever charged pinch a crime successful nan case, stood successful shackles earlier Clark County District Judge Tierra Jones.

Special nationalist defenders Robert Arroyo and Charles Cano represented Davis successful tribunal Thursday. 

Davis mislaid his bid to prosecute defense attorney, Ross Goodman. Two weeks ago, Goodman had said prosecutors deficiency witnesses and key evidence, including a weapon aliases vehicle, for nan sidesplitting committed 27 years ago.

Before entering his plea Thursday, Davis stood successful dark-blue jailhouse garb and answered a short bid of questions, telling nan judge that he attended 'a twelvemonth successful college,' was not nether nan power of immoderate drugs, medicine aliases alcohol, and that he understood he has been charged pinch murder.

Tupac Shakur was changeable successful a drive-by shooting successful Las Vegas connected September 13, 1996. At nan clip of his death, he was 25-years-old, and described arsenic 1 of nan 'most influential rappers of each time.'

Davis, 60, is primitively from Compton, California. He was arrested Sept. 29 extracurricular a location successful suburban Henderson wherever Las Vegas constabulary served a hunt warrant July 17, drafting renewed attraction to 1 of hip-hop music´s astir enduring mysteries. 

Davis remains jailed without bail, did not attest earlier nan expansive assemblage that indicted him, and declined from jailhouse to speak pinch The Associated Press.

The indictment alleges Davis obtained and provided a weapon to personification successful nan backmost spot of a Cadillac earlier nan car-to-car gunfire that mortally wounded Shakur and wounded rap euphony mogul Marion 'Suge' Knight astatine an intersection conscionable disconnected nan Las Vegas Strip. Shakur died a week later. He was 25.

Knight, now 58, is successful situation successful California, serving a 28-year sentence for nan decease of a Compton businessman successful 2015. He has not responded to messages done his attorneys seeking remark astir Davis´ arrest.

Prosecutors allege that Shakur's sidesplitting successful Las Vegas came retired of title betwixt East Coast members of a Bloods pack sect and West Coast groups of a Crips sect, including Davis, for dominance successful a philharmonic genre dubbed 'gangsta rap.'

The expansive assemblage was told nan Sept. 7, 1996 shooting successful Las Vegas was retaliation for a brawl hours earlier astatine a Las Vegas Strip casino involving Shakur and Davis´ nephew, Orlando 'Baby Lane' Anderson.

Prosecutors told a expansive assemblage that Davis implicated himself successful nan sidesplitting successful aggregate interviews and a 2019 tell-all memoir that described his life starring a Crips sect in Compton. 

Davis has said he obtained a .40-caliber handgun and handed it to Anderson, a personnel of Davis´ gang, successful nan backmost spot of a Cadillac, though he didn´t place Anderson arsenic nan shooter.

Anderson, past 22, denied engagement successful Shakur´s sidesplitting and died 2 years later successful a shooting successful his hometown of Compton. The different backmost spot rider and nan driver of nan Cadillac are besides dead.

In his book, Davis wrote that he told authorities successful 2010 what he knew of nan killings of Shakur and pack rival Notorious B.I.G, whose ineligible sanction is Christopher Wallace, to protect himself and 48 of his Southside Compton Crips pack associates from prosecution and nan anticipation of life sentences successful prison.

Wallace, besides known arsenic Biggie Smalls, was changeable and killed successful Los Angeles successful March 1997, six months aft Shakur´s death.

Shakur is mostly considered 1 of nan astir influential and versatile rappers of each time. He had five No. 1 albums, was nominated for six Grammy Awards, was inducted into nan Rock & Roll Hall of Fame successful 2017, and received a posthumous star this twelvemonth connected nan Hollywood Walk of Fame.