Tupac Murder Trial Week 1 Recap: An ‘Act of Revenge,’ Heated Testimony & Police Tapes

The first week of the Tupac Shakur murder trial featured dramatic opening statements, heated testimony from a former Bloods gang member, and infamous recordings in which defendant Duane “Keffe D” Davis candidly discussed the shooting with police detectives.

You’re reading Billboard’s weekly Tupac trial recap, a one-sheet breakdown of everything that happened in the epic murder case over the past week.

Stay tuned here each Friday for all the testimony and big events you might have missed.

As the trial kicked off Monday (Aug.

17) with opening statements, prosecutors told jurors that Davis had orchestrated the 1996 drive-by shooting that killed Tupac as “an act of revenge” after Shakur beat up his nephew.

And, as expected, they leaned heavily on statements from the man himself – both in an interview with police and a 2019 tell-all memoir.

“Let’s be clear: Duane Davis did not pull the trigger,” prosecutor Binu Palal told jurors.

“You will learn that when the opportunity presented itself for retribution, Duane Davis made sure that the shooters were armed and ready to execute their revenge.

And remarkably, you will learn that from Duane Davis himself.” In his own opener, defense attorney Michael W.

Sanft said his client’s statements about he shooting had been fiction and that there was not hard evidence to corroborate them.

At one point, he loaded a presentation screen for jurors that just read “Bulls–t” in white text.

“Keffe D was known to do this,” the attorney told the jurors, pointing to the card.

After opening statements, jurors immediately began hearing witness testimony – first from Garry Dale , a Las Vegas police officer who witnessed the aftermath of the shooting and rode in the ambulance with Shakur.

Dale told jurors that he tried to convince the rapper to say who did it, but that Shakur merely repeated “We’ll take care of it” several times: “I couldn’t get him to talk to me any further than that.” Testimony on Tuesday included Reggie Wright Jr., a former head of security at Suge Knight ’s Death Row Records, and James McDonald, a former Bloods gang member also linked to Knight.