A Las Vegas jury found former South Side Compton Crips leader Duane "Keffe D" Davis guilty of one count of murder with a deadly weapon for orchestrating the 7 September 1996 drive-by killing of rapper Tupac Shakur. The 63-year-old Davis, wearing a black suit, stood impassively as the verdict was read and said he will appeal; the court set sentencing for 13 October. Prosecutors said Davis did not fire the fatal shots but ordered the shooting and supplied the gun his nephew Orlando Anderson used after Anderson was beaten hours earlier following an altercation with Shakur and his entourage. Key evidence included Davis's own statements in a 2008 police interview and excerpts from his 2019 memoir Compton Street Legend, which prosecutors argued voided a protective agreement and demonstrated Davis admitting involvement. Defense lawyers urged jurors to view Davis's comments as boastful fiction made to sell books, but jurors reached a guilty verdict within hours of receiving the case. Shakur was 25 when he was killed; prosecutors and family members described the conviction as the first in the decades-old cold case that has generated countless theories.
