The trial of a former gang leader accused of orchestrating the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur finally began on Monday, 30 years after one of America’s most high-profile unresolved killings.
The proceedings, expected to last a month, will likely not make clear who fired the shots that killed the California hip-hop legend on the night of September 7, 1996, while he was in Las Vegas to attend a Mike Tyson boxing match.
But prosecutors aim to show that the defendant, Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a former leader of the South Side Compton Crips, ordered the killing and provided the gun used to kill Shakur in a drive-by shooting.
The trial began Monday with jury selection, a process expected to last through the week.
Davis, 63, appeared in court wearing a light-blue shirt and blue tie. He faces life in prison without parole if convicted.
The killing of Shakur, also known as 2Pac, is one of America’s most prominent cold cases, prompting endless debate among music fans over who did it and why.
The rapper, who died at the age of 25, was a key figure in a hip-hop rivalry pitting the East Coast against the West Coast.
Known for hits such as “California Love” and “All Eyez on Me”, Shakur — the son of a Black Panther — was raised in Harlem and Baltimore but quickly became the epitome of a California bad boy when he signed with Los Angeles-based Death Row Records.
The trial will revisit the battle between Death Row, founded by Marion “Suge” Knight, and Bad Boy Records, the East Coast label created by Sean “Diddy” Combs and featuring Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace, who was murdered in March 1997.
Prosecutors say Death Row Records was protected by Mob Piru, a Los Angeles gang that was part of the wider Bloods alliance. Knight was affiliated with the group.
Bad Boy Records had hired the rival South Side Compton Crips, led by Davis, as bodyguards.
After the Tyson fight at the MGM Grand casino, Knight and Shakur beat up Davis’s nephew, Crips member Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, in retaliation for an alleged assault on a Death Row employee.
Davis was out for revenge, the prosecution says.
Later that night, a white Cadillac carrying Davis, Anderson and others pulled up beside Shakur’s car in Las Vegas. Shots were fired from the Cadillac, and Shakur was fatally wounded.