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Duane “Keefe D” Davis, the man accused of murder in connection with the 1996 killing of Hip-Hop icon Tupac Shakur, made his first court appearance Wednesday in Las Vegas. Video footage of Davis—who isn’t the shooter but was charged last week for his alleged involvement—being brought into court in handcuffs has been making the rounds on social media. Unfortunately, we still don’t know what Davis will plea to the charge against him.
From Raw Story:
The formal arraignment was delayed and Davis did not enter a plea to the charge of murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang.
Davis has long acknowledged his involvement in the slaying, boasting he was the “on-site commander” in the effort to kill Shakur and Death Row Records boss Marion “Suge” Knight in revenge for an assault on his nephew.
Under Nevada law, anyone who aids or abets a murder can be charged with the killing, in the same way that a getaway driver can be charged with bank robbery even if he never entered the bank.
Speaking of Suge, on Wednesday, we reported that the former Death Row CEO said he believes cops and prosecutors working the case are wrong about Davis, despite the fact that Davis has been dry-snitching on himself for years and that he claims Knight was also a target in the shooting. He also said he would refuse to testify against Davis if he was called to the witness stand.
“We knew about Davis all the way back from his initial confession to law enforcement,” former Los Angeles police detective Greg Kading told CNN after Davis was arrested Friday. “We sat him down back in 2009, and he confessed to his role in the murder along with other coconspirators. He had a proffer agreement, so we couldn’t utilize that information that he was providing against him.”
CNN defined a proffer as “an agreement between a prosecutor and a suspect in which the individual agrees to provide the government with potentially useful information regarding an investigation, however, the statements made generally cannot be used as evidence against the person.”
But, according to Kading, Davis essentially voided the agreement because he just couldn’t resist the inexplicable urge “to go out [and] publicly boast about his involvement in the murder”
Davis is scheduled to appear in court again on Oct. 19.
