That Night!

Legacy and controversy.

In August, Duane "Keffe D" Davis was convicted as an accessory to murder. He was the driver and shot caller in the assassination of Tupac Shakur.

Today marks the 30 year anniversary of the shooting of Tupac Shakur. 

As of today, we mourn the loss of Tupac Shakur, a poetic, spiritual, troubled and controversial figure in hip-hop. Hailed as one of the greatest rappers known, Tupac Shakur was a product of his environment.

His father and mother were both active in the Black Panthers movement. Tupac learned the rules of the game at an early age. He was artistic, gifted, intelligent and savvy.

He wanted to strive for great things.

His life was cut short at age 25. He was engaged in a bitter feud with rival rappers from the east.

Notably the Notorious B.I.G. who Shakur accused of setting him up in his first shooting which he survived at a recording studio in New York.

That led to the great war of the coasts.

To this day, Shakur's life is fascinating.

Praised as one of the most influential entertainers of modern history, Shakur was a flawed man who used his lyrics to detail life as a Black radical. 

Listening to his albums inspires social activism.

On September 7, 1996, at 11:15 PM, Shakur, the famed American entertainer, was shot in a drive-by shooting in Paradise, Nevada. The shooting occurred when the car carrying Shakur was stopped at a red light at East Flamingo Road and Koval Lane. 

Shakur was struck by four rounds fired from a .40-caliber Glock 22 pistol: two in the chest, one in the arm and one in the thigh. The driver, Death Row Records mogul Suge Knight, was grazed by a bullet in the shooting. Shakur died from his injuries six days later.

Davis, a former South Side Compton Crips gang leader in California, stated that he, Terrence "T-Brown" Brown, Orlando Anderson, and DeAndrae "Dre" Smith were in the Cadillac involved in the drive-by shooting. Anderson, also a member of the Crips, was suspected in the murder for many years but denied being involved and was never charged; he was killed in an unrelated gang shooting in 1998. 

On September 29, 2023, Davis was arrested after being indicted by a grand jury for first-degree murder of Shakur; he was found guilty of Shakur's murder on August 31, 2026.

For decades, Shakur’s killer went unidentified. Some people believed Orlando Anderson, a member of the Los Angeles gang Southside Crips, was responsible. Earlier in the evening, prior to the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon heavyweight fight, Anderson had been attacked in the lobby of the MGM Grand Hotel by a group from Death Row Records, including Suge Knight. When a videotape of the attack came to light, Knight, who was out on parole at the time, had to return to prison to serve out a nine-year sentence. Suspecting revenge as a motive, Shakur’s mother filed suit against Anderson for her son’s death, but the case was never resolved because Anderson was shot to death in May 1998 in a shoot-out outside a Los Angeles car wash.

Before his death, Shakur was also the defendant in a couple of civil lawsuits. When Ronald Ray Howard shot a Texas state trooper to death after listening to Shakur’s songs in 1993, the trooper’s widow filed suit against Shakur for manufacturing and distributing music that allegedly incited “imminent lawless action.” In October 1994, two 17-year-old kids in Milwaukee killed a police officer in a sniper attack after claiming they had been “geeked up” by Shakur’s music.

After leaving a Mike Tyson boxing match, Shakur and Suge were on their way to an afterparty when this event happened. Suge was driving his black BMW when a pearly white Cadillac sedan pulled alongside and fired upon the car.

Shakur was rushed to the hospital and placed on life support. He would die of his injuries on September 13, 1996. The case remains open and to this day, other than Davis, no other person has come forward with information.