THE self-confessed gangster charged with Tupac’s murder launched into a furious rant inside a Las Vegas court on Tuesday.
Duane “Keefe D” Davis, who was again denied bail during the court hearing, defiantly refused to stay silent and made a series of allegations about being beaten up while jailed in the Clark County Detection Center.
Keefe, who appeared agitated, told Judge Carli Kierny that he feared dying after claiming he was assaulted in his cell on August 9.
The one-time Compton crime boss, 61, alleged in a courtroom outburst that two correction officers attacked him, leaving him battered and bruised.
Keefe made a startling, unsubstantiated allegation that prosecutors had sent officers to attack him.
He told the courtroom, “They brutally beat me up, attacked me, and assaulted me.
“I told them I had cancer and am on blood thinners.”
The Southside Crip gangster claimed that when he “asked for their names, their sergeant ran them out the door.”
Keefe claimed other prisoners saw the alleged attack, and a video camera may have been on during the assault.
“You have made very serious allegations regarding police brutality and the DAs orchestrating some kind of attack on you,” Judge Kierny warned Keefe.
“I was not made aware of this.”
As Keefe tried to argue with Kierny, she urged him to have his lawyer, Carl Arnold, file motions and present evidence to the court.
However, Keefe snapped, “That’s wrong.
“I am on blood thinners… a bloody nose and you can die.”
Keefe alleged that he complained to deputies, asking, “What is wrong with you guys? Have some compassion. This is wrong.”
Judge Kierny urged Arnold to submit paperwork on behalf of Keefe, but again, the jailed gangster fired back, “I wish they could be disciplined or fired. This was wrong.”
Prosecutor Binu Palal told The U.S. Sun after the hearing that he “would not dignify Mr. Davis’ allegations with a response.”
Before the hearing got underway, Keefe sat slumped in the courtroom chair, separated from his over defendants.
Keefe appeared frustrated over the prosecutors’ arguments and was overheard taking a huge sigh out of dissatisfaction.
In another moment, as he shuffled around in his seat, the former gang boss smirked at the media present in the courtroom.
Keefe’s outburst came moments after the judge ruled he would not be granted bail after a 20-minute hearing at the Las Vegas Judicial Court.
By The Sun’s Senior Reporter Emma Parry, who has been reporting on the Tupac murder for the past 10 years
TUPAC fans have been waiting for justice for the iconic rapper for almost 28 years.
Finally in September 2023 there appeared to be progress with the arrest of Duane “Keefe D” Davis – a former Southside Crip gangster from Compton, LA – who had been telling the world for years that he and his fellow “gang soldiers” were responsible for the hit.
I’ve been reporting on the case for several years and it always appeared pretty cut and dry…Keefe had spent the past decade gaining notoriety by boasting about his alleged involvement in the shooting – now he was finally getting what he deserves. But despite Keefe running his mouth for years, I now believe a guilty verdict in November’s trial is far from guaranteed.
Keefe describes in great detail in his memoir Compton Street Legend what went down the night Pac was shot, extracts from which The U.S. Sun has published.
He claimed that he was offered a million dollars by rapper Diddy to “handle” Tupac and Suge Knight and when he and his Crip gangsters came across the pair driving near the Strip in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996, Keefe alleged he passed the gun to his nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson who took the shot. Keefe said if Pac had been on his side: “I would have blast”.
Keefe repeated the claims multiple times over the years, on YouTube channels, documentaries, and even in taped confessions to police, when he believed he could not be prosecuted. In one confession to the LAPD, Keefe appeared completely remorseless telling detectives: “We didn’t give a f**k…The ambulance [for Tupac] was parked right here next to us. That s**t was as funny as a motherf**ker.”
The Sun has been publishing stories about Keefe’s self confessed involvement in the crime since 2018.
I sent many links to his confessions to Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, asking them why this man had not been arrested yet. They would thank me for the info but say that they could not comment because the case was still active. From the outside, it looked like no action was being taken at all.
We spoke to former detectives involved in the case and documentary makers who all felt utterly frustrated at the lack of progress in the case. We even published a plea from former LAPD detective Greg Kading, who had probed the murders, urging Las Vegas cops to arrest Keefe, back in 2020.
For years, the case appeared to have been forgotten and ignored, to be left forever unsolved.
But finally, in the summer of 2023, we got word from our sources that there had been a huge development in the case. A secret grand jury was due to be held on whether or not Keefe should be indicted. I was dubious at first but around the same time a house in Henderson, Nevada, linked to Keefe, was raided in July as part of the Tupac investigation.
Things were heating up.
Later that summer, behind closed doors, jurors listened to hours of testimony from former cops, detectives, and coroners involved in the Tupac case and gangsters and associates of Keefe’s and Pac’s from back in the day. They were shown graphic photos of Tupac’s bullet-ridden body. After days of evidence, they decided there was enough evidence to prosecute Keefe.
Once the secret documents were released I poured over the transcripts. While interesting, many of the witnesses were telling stories they’d heard second-hand. None of the prosecution witnesses had a clear look at who shot Pac. One witness Devonta Lee claimed another gangster called Big Dre took the shot – not Orlando. Maybe things weren’t as clear-cut as I first thought.
Keefe was then arrested on September 30, 2023 at his home. Bodycam footage we obtained from the scene showed Keefe bragging to cops even as he was handcuffed in the back of a police car – telling officers he was involved in the “biggest case in Las Vegas history”.
Following Keefe’s multiple appearances in court, he seems to have lost much of that bravado and now cuts a sad, lonely figure.
Suffering from various health problems as a result of cancer, he’s struggling to cope with the brutalities of jail life and can’t get together enough money to afford his bail. He feels some of his old Southside Crip associates – men he handed wads of cash to in his glory days, have just abandoned him.
Keefe is now desperate to get out of jail, and his defense stems is leaning on his claim that he completely made up his involvement in the Tupac murder for fame and money. He saw other people cashing in on the murder so he thought he would too. He reckons his confessions to police were all lies – he made it up because he was under a plea deal and thought it would help him beat his other charges.
And, according to his lawyer Carl Arnold, he wasn’t even in Las Vegas on the night of the shooting. Arnold remains convinced he will see his client walk free and their secret weapon could be former Death Row Records boss Suge.
As the only other person still alive from either car, Suge, currently in prison for a fatal hit and run, would be a key witness. Suge is the only person still alive who knows what went down – he saw the shooter. While he’s said he won’t testify at the November trial, Suge has claimed in a TMZ interview from prison that Orlando was not the shooter, which again throws into doubt Keefe’s version of events.
Keefe and his lawyer are hoping they might be able to change his mind and persuade him to testify for the defense. And Suge holds the power to blow the prosecution’s case apart.
And if Keefe walks free, will there ever be justice for Pac?
The jailed gangster has spent eight months fighting to raise cash legitimately to be released on house arrest.
His lawyer argued that Keefe was legally allowed to make money from his reputation, given he was not convicted for Tupac‘s death.
Keefe, who wore his dark blue CCDC uniform, stood grim-faced as Arnold, who attended the hearing via FaceTime, made the case to allow his client to be released on bail.
Arnold noted that he needed more time to review dozens of documents from the Los Angeles Police Department related to his client’s case.
Arnold was deciding what motions he planned to file having both “the case dismissed” or aspects of evidence presented by prosecutors.
All parties agreed to push back the trial from November to March 17, 2025.
Judge Kierny previously revealed that she was unsatisfied with the nature of the funds needed for Keefe’s $112,500 bond from a company called AG Entertainment.
The judge first granted Keefe bail based on a $750,000 fee on January 10.
Her ruling included Keefe disclosing full details on where the money prepped for his release would come from.
In July, she denied his first attempt at bail over uncertainty about the source of the bail bond supplied by rap entertainer Cash “Wack 100” Jones.
Prosecutors called out the rap entertainer and Keefe in court, stating the pair had misled the judge over Jones’ motive for handing out a $112,500 bond.
Keefe denied having struck any deal with Jones for TV projects in the hearing, with Jones insisting that was not his business plan.
But prosecutors played recorded jail phone calls of Keefe discussing with his wife how Jones had a “Jewish partner” from “Paragon” offering a TV deal.
In the jailhouse calls, Jones is heard telling Keefe he’d “spoken to television bigwigs” and “that his priority is to get at least ten episodes done before Defendant’s trial starts.“
AG Entertainment was introduced as a silent partner in the deal but did not appear at the hearing.
Since the summer of 2023, prosecutors have pushed for Keefe to remain behind bars before his trial, suggesting he remains “a danger to the community” and alleged he’d discussed having a potential witness killed.
Prosecutors described Keefe as having a “reputation as a brutal gang leader, prior record, the nature of the offense, and the danger represented to the community” as reasons for issuing a detention order.
Keefe, who has repeatedly denied the charges despite making multiple confessions on record of being the shot-caller, faces life in prison if convicted of Tupac’s murder.
