Tupac Shakur’s family have filed a wrongful death lawsuit, seeking unspecified damages relating to his alleged murder.
The late rapper was one of the most influential artists of the ‘90s, and was killed on September 7 1996 after he and Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight went to Las Vegas to see a boxing match between Mike Tyson and Bruce Seldon.
That evening, there was an altercation between them and Orlando Anderson at the MGM Grand Casino. When Tupac and Knight drove to Club 662 later that night, a white Cadillac pulled alongside them and somebody sitting in the back seat opened fire, shooting Shakur four times. He died in hospital six days later, aged 25.
Duane “Keefe D” Davis is the only person to be arrested in connection with the death. He was apprehended by police in 2023 and later pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. Davis is the uncle of Orlando Anderson, and police alleged that he planned the shooting with his nephew as retaliation for the altercation at the casino.
Davis is a former leader of the South Side Compton Crips gang, and prosecutors have argued that he had “ordered the death” of the rapper, while police have claimed that Davis got the gun used to shoot Shakur from an unnamed associate.
As part of a 2008 plea deal, Davis admitted that he was in the white Cadillac when the shots were fired that night.
The three men who were in the car with him at the time – including his nephew – have all since died, and Davis both maintained his not-guilty plea and also made moves to suppress key evidence in the case – claiming it was obtained in an “unlawful nighttime search.”
He is set to stand trial in August following multiple delays.
Now, the family of Shakur have filed a wrongful death lawsuit which alleges that there was a “complex conspiracy” to murder the rapper.
With the filing, the family question the understanding that the killing was simply retaliation for the casino altercation, and hope to uncover and expose other individuals who they believe “were involved” in Tupac’s death.
The wrongful death suit names Davis, although it is separate to the trial that he is currently set to appear in court for this summer. It was filed yesterday (Tuesday April 28) in Los Angeles by Tupac’s brother Maurice Shakur, who is acting as the administrator of the estate in place of his late father, Mutulu.
“Nearly 30 years after Tupac’s death, in 2023, the first – and only – arrest was made,” the documents state (as per BBC News).
The lawsuit also claims to have “revealed the existence of a broader, more complex conspiracy to murder Tupac”, citing alleged evidence within “related grand jury transcripts and a subsequent Netflix documentary”.
This, it claims, proves that the killing was intricate and planned-out, instead of a “mere retaliation for a prior altercation”.
The documentary it references is Sean Combs: The Reckoning. It aired on Netflix last year and focused on the allegations raised against Sean “Diddy” Combs, but also included tapes of a police interview where Davis claimed that Combs offered him $1million (£769,000) to murder Tupac.
Combs has denied any involvement in the rapper’s murder multiple times now, and has also hit out at The Reckoning as a “shameful hit piece”.
In light of Davis’ arrest, footage from a 2019 interview with him resurfaced, in which he recalled the final moments before Tupac was killed in 1996.