Police seized items in the raid on a Las Vegas-area home in connection with the shooting of rapper Tupac Shakur, whose murder remains unsolved after 27 years.
Las Vegas police seized items “concerning the murder of Tupac Shakur” in a raid on a home connected to one of the only surviving witnesses to the crime, a man investigators have identified whose nephew was viewed as a suspect shortly after Tupac’s killing in 1996.
Detectives raided the property for items concerning the rapper’s murder from Duane “Keefe D” Davis, according to warrant documents obtained by the press on Thursday. The 60-year-old Davis is a self-described “gangster” and the uncle of Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, a known rival of Shakur. Anderson has denied involvement in Shakur’s death and died two years later in a shooting in Compton, California.
Police reported collecting five computers, several tablets, a hard drive, USB drives, an iPhone, “documentary documents,” a Vibe magazine featuring Shakur, “purported marijuana,” .40-caliber bullets, two “tubs containing photographs,” and a copy of Davis’ 2019 memoir, “Compton Street Legend.”
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police confirmed serving a search warrant on Monday in the neighboring city of Henderson, Nevada. The department hasn’t confirmed whether investigators expect to make the first-ever arrest in the rapper’s murder nearly 27 years ago, nor have they publicly identified the two people encountered at the house during the raid — although property records show that the home belongs to Paula Clemons, who is married to Davis.
The search warrant specifies that police were looking for “items that tend to show evidence of motive and/or the identity of the perpetrator such as photographs or undeveloped film, insurance policies and letters, address and telephone records, diaries, and other documents.”
The affidavit requesting the warrant further shows police were looking for “notes, writings, ledgers, and other handwritten or typed documents concerning television shows, documentaries, YouTube episodes, book manuscripts, and movies concerning the murder of Tupac Shakur.”
According to people with direct knowledge of the investigation, the case is being presented to a Las Vegas grand jury. The timing and results of those proceedings are as yet unclear.
In an interview with BET in 1998, Davis said he was in the front seat of the car that came up alongside Shakur’s vehicle when shots rang out from the backseat but would not elaborate on the shooter’s identity.
“Going to keep it for the code of the streets,” said Davis when asked who of the four men in the vehicle was responsible for pulling the trigger. “It just came from the backseat, bro.”
Three hours before the shooting, MGM casino surveillance footage shows Shakur, Suge Knight, and their entourage attacking Anderson, a Los Angeles-area gang member, which many believe led to Anderson and his friends shooting Shakur in retaliation. Anderson died in a gang-related shooting in 1998.
The first officer on the scene of Shakur’s 1996 shooting, now-retired police lieutenant Chris Carroll, says he believes Anderson is the person who shot Tupac, calling the recent search warrant “pretty significant.”
“It’s been 27 years. I think anybody had given up hope on any type of prosecution, and this (…) kind of changes the game and opens things up,” said Carroll, whose optimism remains guarded. “I would be surprised if they even found anything in that home that is usable as evidence, but you know, maybe they did.”
