Tupac Shakur: Police seize hard drives and laptops at house

Las Vegas police searching for evidence in the unsolved 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur were targeting an alleged gang member’s home, a warrant says.

The home searched on Monday belongs to Duane Keith Davis, 60, said to have been inside a car carrying the gunman.

Mr Davis has previously denied any involvement but has also spoken about being at the scene. No arrests have been made in the case.

Police seized hard drives, tablets and laptops.

Mr Davis, who is also known as “Keefy D” or “Keffe D,” is allegedly affiliated with the South Side Compton Crips street gang.

He had initially been investigated by police in Los Angeles and Las Vegas over Shakur’s killing but was cleared after denying involvement.

The search on Monday took place at home in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson, less than 20 miles (32km) from the Las Vegas strip where Shakur was shot in a drive-by shooting.

The search warrant obtained by BBC News on Thursday shows that 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”.

Among the items seized were several hard drives, tablets and laptops.

A copy of Vibe magazine featuring Tupac was also taken, along with a copy of the book Compton Street Legends, which is co-authored by Mr Davis.

The warrant says police were searching for items that “tend to show evidence of motive and/or identity of the perpetrator such as photographs and undeveloped film, insurance policies, and letters, address and telephone records, diaries, and other documents, whether such items are written, typed or stored on computer discs”.

In a 2018 Netflix documentary and in his book released in 2019, Mr Davis indicated that he was inside the car with the gunman who killed Shakur.

In 2009, Mr Davis spoke to Los Angeles police about the murder of rapper Notorious B.I.G. and offered details of Shakur’s murder under a non-prosecution deal, a retired officer told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.

In the police interview, he said that the fatal shots were fired by his nephew, Orlando Anderson, who had been in a fight with Shakur the same night of his murder and who was later himself killed in a separate crime.

The former LAPD detective who conducted the interview has advocated for Mr Davis’s arrest. In 2019 he told CBS that there is enough evidence to arrest him, adding that he is “boasting about it, and making money off of it and taunting law enforcement”.

Shakur, whose stage name was stylised as 2Pac, released his debut album in 1991 and went on to enjoy chart success with hits including California Love, All Eyez on Me, Changes and I Ain’t Mad at Cha.

He died on 13 September 1996, a week after he was shot four times in his car while waiting at a red light.

Shakur, who sold more than 75 million records worldwide, was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.

Las Vegas