LAS VEGAS — Two dozen Las Vegas police body camera videos showed the moment a man and woman exited a home raided in July in connection with the cold case killing of rapper Tupac Shakur.
The heavily redacted footage obtained Thursday by the Associated Press does not provide a view into the home or identify the couple, whose faces were blurred from view.
Rapper Tupac Shakur Frank Wiese/Associated Press file
But a copy of the warrant said police were searching on the night of July 17 for items “concerning the murder” of Shakur from Duane “Keffe D” Davis, one of the last surviving witnesses to a crime that has fascinated the public for decades.
Authorities have been tight-lipped about their investigation. Beyond a brief statement released last month confirming their raid in the nearby city of Henderson, they haven’t released any information about the long-dormant case, including why they had obtained a search warrant now to collect items from a man who has long been known to investigators.
The newly released videos showed the man and woman emerging from the garage after SWAT officers repeatedly announced their presence on a bullhorn.
“It’s the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department,” an officer said. “We have a search warrant. You need to come out with your hands up and your hands empty!”
Meanwhile, another officer spoke with the woman on the phone, telling her to exit through the garage, according to one of the videos.
“I want you to stay on the phone with me,” the SWAT officer told the woman. “Open up that door, OK?”
“Please don’t shoot me,” the woman responded.
One at a time, with hands on their heads, the man and woman walked slowly toward the officers and into a swirl of red and blue police lights illuminating the neighborhood.
“Who are you looking for?” the man said while the officers zip-tied his hands behind his back. He was wearing dark shorts, a tank top, and a black shirt pulled just over his shoulders as if he had just thrown the shirt on before stepping outside for the police.
The officers asked the man for his name, but the video’s audio cut off when he answered. He told police that only he and his wife were inside the home.
Messages left at phone numbers publicly listed for Davis and his wife were not returned.
Davis, now 60, is a self-described “gangster” and the uncle of one of Shakur’s known rivals who was seen as a suspect early on in the police investigation.
The videos don’t show the actual search of the home. But according to the search warrant, Las Vegas police reported collecting from the Henderson home multiple computers, a cellphone, and hard drive, a Vibe magazine that featured Shakur, several .40-caliber bullets, two “tubs containing photographs” and a copy of Davis’ 2019 tell-all memoir, “Compton Street Legend.”
In the book, Davis said he first broke his silence over Tupac’s killing in a closed-door meeting with federal and local authorities in 2010. He was 46 and facing life in prison on drug charges when he agreed to speak with them.
“They offered to let me go for running a ‘criminal enterprise’ and numerous alleged murders for the truth about the Tupac and Biggie murders,” Davis said of talking to federal authorities. “They promised they would shred the indictment and stop the grand jury if I helped them out.”
Shakur was 25 when he was gunned down in a drive-by shooting near the Las Vegas Strip on the night of Sept. 7, 1996. The rapper was in a BMW driven by Death Row Records founder Marion “Suge” Knight in a convoy of about 10 cars. They were waiting at a red light when a white Cadillac pulled up next to them and gunfire erupted.
Shakur was shot multiple times and died a week later.
Davis admitted in his memoir to being inside the Cadillac during the attack. He said he “tossed” the weapon used in the shooting into the back seat and implicated his nephew, Orlando Anderson, saying he was one of two people in the back of the car where the shots were fired.
The shooting happened shortly after a casino brawl earlier in the evening involving Anderson, Shakur, and others.
Anderson denied any involvement in Shakur’s killing. He died two years later in a shooting in Compton, California.
Associated Press writer Ken Ritter in Las Vegas contributed.
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