Duane "Keffe D" Davis, a Southside Compton Crips gang leader, was convicted this week for orchestrating the 1996 murder of hip-hop star Tupac Shakur. The conviction comes almost 30 years after Shakur's death.
Davis had told investigators in 2008 that his nephew, Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, who died in 1998, was the one who fired the shots. Testimony in the trial revealed that police received information about the killing and potential suspects almost immediately after the shooting, despite Las Vegas police taking 27 years to make an arrest.
Surveillance footage played at the trial showed Shakur and his associates assaulting Anderson at the MGM hotel in Las Vegas. Davis later stated this attack prompted him and his nephew to seek revenge on Shakur. Reggie Wright Jr, former head of security for Shakur's record label, testified that he contacted a Compton police lieutenant, his father, hours after the shooting, warning of potential trouble.
Robert Ladd, then a Compton gang homicide detective, testified that Compton police immediately braced for retaliatory violence and believed the Southside Crips were responsible. Compton police "rounded up" gang members, including Anderson, in October 1996 and invited Las Vegas police to interview them, but Ladd stated Las Vegas police showed little interest.