Tupac Murder Trial Testimony Ends With Cop Saying He Was Told to ‘Stand Down’ on Keffe D Arrest

Closing arguments at Duane "Keffe D" Davis" murder trial set for Monday

Duane Davis at his Tupac Shakur murder trial in Las Vegas, Nevada, on August 26, 2026

Duane “Keffe D” Davis, the former gang leader charged with the 1996 drive-by shooting murder of rap legend Tupac Shakur, called just three witnesses before resting his defense at his Las Vegas trial in less than two hours on Thursday. Closing arguments in the closely watched case are set for Monday.

Davis’ lawyer, Michael Sanft, centered the defense on testimony from three former Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officers in an effort to raise reasonable doubt. Former LVMPD Sgt. Stan Hyt and former Lt. Charlie Mangrum testified they were working overtime the night Shakur was shot, keeping an eye on the Las Vegas home of Death Row Records co-founder Suge Knight, who was expected to host a party after boxer Mike Tyson won a bout at the MGM Grand.

Hyt and Mangrum said they saw a light-colored Cadillac arrive at the house and later leave as part of a convoy that included Knight driving Shakur in his BMW, according to a trial livestream from Law&Crime. Sanft apparently highlighted the testimony because witnesses later told police that it was a light-colored Cadillac that pulled alongside Knight’s BMW less than an hour later, when someone in the back seat opened fire, fatally wounding Shakur.

According to prosecutors, Davis, a leader of the South Side Compton Crips, was riding in the front passenger seat of the rented white Cadillac involved in the shooting. They allege he was the “shot-caller” that night and allowed his nephew, Orlando Anderson, to open fire on the BMW in retaliation for an attack by Shakur and his entourage on Anderson inside the MGM Grand about two hours earlier.

Suggesting that Knight had a light-colored Cadillac in his convoy could introduce more uncertainty. Sanft didn’t connect the dots, but other tips and theories about different alleged shooters have floated around for decades. On the second day of trial testimony, for instance, jurors heard about an alternate conspiracy theory that Knight’s security chief, Reggie Wright Jr., was involved in Shakur’s killing. Prosecutors raised the theory while questioning James McDonald, a former associate of Knight and member of the Mob Piru Bloods, who testified under a court order Aug. 18. McDonald, also known as “Mob James,” rejected the idea that Wright wanted Shakur dead as part of a power grab.

“It’s not true,” he testified. “If Reggie killed Tupac, then Death Row was over with. Tupac was the money source. Tupac was that guy at Death Row.”

Under cross-examination by Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo on Thursday, Mangrum said his report from that night included the license plate numbers of all the vehicles that entered Knight’s property. Asked whether homicide detectives in 1996 would have followed up on that information, he said yes.

Davis’ third and final witness was former Las Vegas Metropolitan Police homicide Det. Dan Long, who led the Shakur murder investigation from 2002 to 2017. Sanft questioned Long about other tips in the case and the history of the department’s investigative file, seeking to cast doubt on the thoroughness of the police work.

Long testified that the paper case file had to be “locked down” at one point because “curious” department employees were accessing it to read about the investigation. He also said some of his reports were later lost when the department switched electronic storage systems.

Sanft focused heavily on a 2009 interview Long conducted with Davis in Los Angeles, about a year after Davis gave a secret interview to a joint LAPD and federal task force investigating the 1997 killing of Christopher Wallace, the New York rapper known as The Notorious B.I.G. and Biggie Smalls, in Los Angeles.

Investigators had initially scrutinized Davis in the Wallace case because he attended the party at the Petersen Automotive Museum that Wallace was leaving when he was fatally shot in a drive-by attack. Authorities believed the gunman was in a Chevrolet Impala, and Davis was known to drive an Impala.

LAPD detectives Greg Kading and Daryn Dupree approached Davis at his Corona, California, home in 2008 while investigating drug trafficking allegations that could have exposed him to a lengthy prison sentence. Dupree testified on the third day of Davis’ trial, telling jurors that when the detectives asked whether Davis was involved in Wallace’s killing, he replied, “We did the other one.”

That remark led to the secret Dec. 18, 2008, proffer interview, commonly known as a “queen for a day” session, in which Davis received limited protections over statements he made to investigators. In the recording played for jurors, Davis said he was riding in the front passenger seat of the Cadillac involved in Shakur’s shooting and handed a loaded .40-caliber Glock to the men in the back seat. He said Anderson took the gun and opened fire before the group fled.

Prosecutors say the agreement did not grant Davis blanket immunity and that he later forfeited protections surrounding his statement by publicly repeating key details, including in a BET docuseries and his 2019 memoir, Compton Street Legend. Sanft argued in his opening statement that Davis invented the story to gain leverage in the drug investigation and later repeated it for money. He also accused investigators of failing to corroborate Davis’ account.

“It’s because they knew he was full of crap,” Sanft told jurors.

On Thursday, Sanft questioned Long about his separate, recorded interview with Davis in 2009. Long testified that he did not know at the time about the earlier proffer agreement. After hearing Davis’ account and returning to Las Vegas, Long said he was eager to type up a warrant to “have Mr. Davis arrested for murder.”

Long testified that he was later told to “stand down,” apparently because of Davis’ proffer agreement. Sanft ostensibly sought the testimony to reinforce two defense themes: that authorities had effectively promised Davis protection for his statements, and that high-level prosecutors ultimately did not consider his account sufficiently credible to warrant further scrutiny.

Davis, 63, has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder with use of a deadly weapon and has been jailed since his September 2023 arrest. In his opening statement on Aug. 17, Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal told jurors the shooting amounted to an “act of revenge” amid simmering gang tensions between the South Side Compton Crips and the Mob Piru Bloods, with which Shakur and Knight had affiliation.

“Duane Davis did not pull the trigger. But what he did do was plan the retaliation for the beating of his nephew. You will learn that Duane Davis got the gun. You will learn that he got into a white Cadillac. You will learn when the opportunity presented itself for retribution, Duane Davis made sure that the shooters are armed and ready to execute their revenge. And remarkably, you will learn that from Duane Davis himself,” Palal said, referring to the 2008 proffer interview.

Before he left the witness stand Thursday, Det. Long answered a question from the jury. The question asked whether Long ever interviewed Knight about the shooting that killed Shakur. Long said he tried. He recalled asking a fellow cop who played football with Knight to set something up. “Suge hung up on him,” Long said.

In testimony on Aug. 25, Malcolm Greenidge, a close friend of Shakur’s who performed as E.D.I. Mean in the rapper’s group Outlawz, gave his account of the night of the shooting. He said he was riding in a Lexus “right behind” the BMW in a caravan headed to Knight’s nightclub. Greenidge recalled seeing silhouettes of several people inside a light-colored Cadillac that pulled up alongside the BMW, separate from the convoy. He recalled seeing an arm extending from a rear window just before the gunfire began. He could see the gun and the arm holding it, he said, but not the shooter’s face.

Greenidge testified that Knight made a U-turn and sped away after the shooting, and that he personally followed the BMW and rushed to Shakur’s side after it stopped. Police arrived moments later, he said, and an officer pointed a shotgun at him and ordered him to the ground. Greenidge said Shakur then warned him, in what would be among his final words: “Get on the ground, they’re going to shoot you.”

Justine Gatus, a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department homicide detective, took the stand after Greenidge and walked jurors through items seized from Davis’ residence in 2023, including a stack of newspaper and magazine clippings related to the shooting and its aftermath.

Lil Durk on Oct. 28, 2023 in Newark, New Jersey

An unreleased music video filmed by Grammy-winning rapper Lil Durk was shown to jurors at his Los Angeles murder-for-hire trial Wednesday, with prosecutors claiming it was evidence of a revenge motive and defense lawyer Brian Steel dismissing it as creative speech by a “grief-stricken” poet.

“It was an expression of art that never got released,” Steel said in a courtroom in downtown Los Angeles. The lawyer known for defending high-profile clients including Young Thug and Sean Combs called Banks the “type of genius” who paints “pictures with words” through his music.

Lil Durk, born Durk Banks, filmed the video in January 2021. In it, he appears as himself, reading news coverage of the 2020 shooting death of his close friend and musical protégé King Von in Atlanta. Banks, styled with his then-signature blond dreadlocks, was shown on screens in the courtroom chasing and shooting an actor whom prosecutors say was portraying rival rapper Quando Rondo.

In opening statements Monday, prosecutors said Banks blamed Quando Rondo for King Von’s shooting death because the two men were involved in a fistfight outside a hookah lounge on Nov. 6, 2020, seconds before an associate of Quando Rondo’s fatally shot King Von. They said Banks was so “consumed with revenge” that a year-and-a-half after filming the “Redman” video, Banks allegedly hired a group of hitmen to stalk and kill Quando Rondo, born Tyquian Bowman, in Los Angeles.

According to prosecutors, Banks paid for the plane tickets, hotel rooms, ski masks, cars, and guns that were used when the men followed Bowman around L.A. on Aug. 19, 2022, and eventually opened fire on his vehicle at a gas station near the Beverly Center mall. Bowman survived, but his cousin Saviay’a Robinson, known as Lul Pab, was fatally struck. Prosecutors say one of the weapons used in the shooting was a semiautomatic firearm modified to function as a machine gun.

Banks, 33, has pleaded not guilty. One of his lawyers said in her opening statement that the “All My Life” rapper “had nothing to do with” the killing and never offered or paid a bounty. On Wednesday, Steel used his cross-examination of FBI Special Agent Jarron Farmby to challenge prosecutors’ decision to cite the unreleased “Redman” video as an overt act in the federal indictment charging Banks with conspiracy, stalking resulting in death, and murder for hire.

With Banks watching from the defense table, Steel asked Farmby whether investigators had contacted the video’s producer or videographer about how it was conceived. Farmby said he had not been involved in that part of the investigation. Asked whether anyone had contacted Banks’s record label about the video’s artistic concept, Farmby said he was not aware of such outreach.

“You know that Durk is a musical artist, a poet, true?” Steel asked after establishing that the professionally produced video used a “toy gun” and was staged so that “nobody got hurt.”

“That’s what he does,” Farmby replied.

Steel then turned to Banks’ grief after King Von’s death and some of the messages he exchanged with his associates. He asked whether people mourning a profound loss that “severs their entire being” might become so “grief-stricken” that they say or do things they would not do after having more time to process the loss. Farmby said that was “possible.”

The lawyer also used his line of questioning to suggest prosecutors weren’t giving jurors the whole picture about how Banks processed the tragedy. He claimed investigators discovered communications in which Banks discussed King Von’s death with his associates and said, “You need a therapist.”

Steel also pointed to a 2021 music video released by Quando Rondo titled “Soul Reaper,” in which a blond-dreadlocked actor resembling Banks is kidnapped at gunpoint and shot.

“Mr. Bowman never got prosecuted?” Steel asked after eliciting testimony that there were no convictions stemming from King Von’s death. The agent said no.

“That was art,” Steel replied.

In opening statements Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Weiner called the case one of “revenge, stalking, and premeditated murder.” He said the evidence would show Banks used coded language to dispatch the group of gunmen. He pointed to an Aug. 18, 2022, text in which Banks wrote, “Don’t book no flights under no names involved wit me.”

On Wednesday, Steel suggested the text had nothing to do with the flights booked using one of his management company’s credit cards for the men charged as his co-defendants in the government’s first indictment. Steel said that at the time, Banks had a friend getting married in Mexico who was expecting his attendance. The lawyer asked the agent if he knew Banks had recently suffered an injury that caused him to cancel his tour in August 2022. The agent said he did not.

The government’s case relies heavily on cooperating witnesses, including Banks’ former employee Kavon “OTF Vonnie” Grant, who has pleaded guilty. Prosecutors said Jerome Kacey “OTF Jam” Hester and Keith Jones also pleaded guilty and are cooperating.

Hester began testifying Wednesday afternoon, telling jurors he was a member of Chicago’s Black Disciples gang and rose to a leadership role through “violence,” including an attempted murder that led to a 12-year prison sentence. After his release in February 2022, Banks bought him clothes and welcomed him home, Hester testified.

The day before Robinson’s killing, Hester received a call from an associate who told him to get on a flight from Chicago to Los Angeles that day, he said. According to Hester, he could hear Banks’ voice on another call with the associate in the background. Hester told the jury he flew to San Diego without even packing a bag and only learned after he landed that the plan was to find and kill Quando Rondo.

Hester testified that Kavon Grant provided guns and cars to him and the other men who traveled from Chicago to San Diego that day. Asked if Grant was giving him orders to carry out the shooting, he said that wasn’t the case, calling Grant a “nobody.” Hester’s testimony is set to continue Thursday, with a cross-examination by Steel.

Banks’ lawyer Marissa Goldberg told jurors in her opening statement that Hester started cooperating with authorities shortly after he was arrested in May 2023 “because he was desperate.” She said he “couldn’t go back to jail another day in his life” and “became a massive cooperator.”

According to Goldberg, Grant was the one who organized the August 2022 shooting plot on his own. She said Grant was extremely “tight” with King Von, was with him in Atlanta the night he was killed, and became consumed with a desire for revenge. Banks, by contrast, “channeled” his anger and frustration into “his artwork,” she said.

“Mr. Banks had nothing to do with it,” Goldberg said. She argued prosecutors have no evidence he paid anyone for the shooting. “This is a murder-for-hire allegation where nobody gets paid,” she said.

An LAPD detective testified that GPS data from a rented white BMW helped investigators track members of the group to an In-N-Out Burger after the shooting. Surveillance footage and other evidence were then used to identify several suspects.

The judge has ruled that beyond the “Redman” video, jurors will be able to hear lyrics from several of Banks’ songs, including “Pissed Me Off,” “Who Want Smoke??,” and “Ahhh Ha,” in which he raps, “Don’t respond to shit with Von. I’m like ‘Fuck it, you trippin’, go get your gun. They droppin’ locations, I’m gettin’ it done. Fuck tweeting, we slidin’, the feds are comin’.”

The use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal trials is controversial, with critics saying the practice chills creative expression and allows prosecutors to distort hyperbolic art in ways that reinforce racist stereotypes.

Banks’ trial is expected to last three weeks. His wife India Royale and father Dontay Banks Sr. were in the audience on Wednesday. The judge started the proceedings by calling for a moment of silence to mark the death of beloved entertainer and philanthropist Dolly Parton, who died Tuesday at age 80.

Sabrina Carpenter is giving Toronto fans a little treat to celebrate Man’s Best Friend this weekend, one year after the album helped cement her status as one of pop’s biggest stars.

The singer will host a one-day pop-up shop at 80 Atlantic Ave. on Saturday, August 29, the first anniversary of the album’s release. The event will feature new merchandise and fan activations, including a Polaroid photo wall designed around the world of Man’s Best Friend. It will run from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., while supplies last, with the official lineup beginning at 10 a.m.

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Shem is also up for seven VMAs this year, including Video of the Year and Artist of the Year, putting her among the ceremony’s most nominated artists. The awards will take place September 27 in Los Angeles.The Toronto pop-up arrives at a particularly poignant moment following the death of Dolly Parton on August 25. Carpenter paid tribute to Parton, with whom she collaborated on a new version of “Please Please Please” in 2025.

Jay-Z and Rick Rubin in ‘JAŸ-Z in 8.’

Jay-Z discusses his life-long love of writing, rap’s irresistible underdog energy, and more in the new teaser for his upcoming docuseries, JAŸ-Z in 8.

The upcoming HBO series finds Jay digging back into his catalog while in conversation with Rick Rubin about his life, career, and music. While Jay has done this in various forms over the years, the black-and-white clip appropriately opens with Jay reciting one of his most famous lines: “Allow me to reintroduce myself, my name is Hov.”

From there, Jay talks about how he caught the writing bug at age nine and pontificates on hip-hop’s enduring appeal, as well as its limitless potential. “The reason why rap is so loved — that feeling of that underdog,” Jay says. “That’s why people were listening, that’s why it hit them somewhere.”

The first two episodes of JAŸ-Z in 8, which Rubin directed, will premiere on Sept. 18, with two additional episodes dropping every Friday through Oct. 9. The discussions in each episode will center around a handful of Jay-Z songs, selected by Rubin. For instance, episode one will feature “Intro” (off 2000’s The Dynasty: Roc La Familia), “Meet the Parents” (off 2002’s The Blueprint 2), “Can’t Knocks the Hustle” (of 1996’s Reasonable Doubt),and “What More Can I Say” (off 2003’s The Black Album).

Future episodes will feature songs like “Brooklyn’s Finest,” “4:44,” “Can I Live,” “Politics as Usual,” “99 Problems,” “Dead Presidents II,” “Public Service Announcement (Interlude),” “The Story of O.J.,” and “No Church in the Wild.”

JAŸ-Z in 8 is part of Jay’s massive, year-long celebration centered around the 30th anniversary of his debut album, Reasonable Doubt. The festivities have included shows in New York City, and upcoming gigs in Los Angeles, Paris, and London, a series of pop-up events and activations, and even a run of commemorative library cards with the Brooklyn Public Library system.

Paul McCartney and John Lennon performing with the Beatles in 1965

The Beatles have released a rare recording of Paul McCartney and John Lennon working on a very early version of their classic single, “Day Tripper.”

The so-called “Songwriting Work Tape” version of “Day Tripper” was recorded at Lennon’s home in Surrey, England. At this point, Lennon and McCartney had yet to come up with the song’s legendary riff, though it’s easy to see how they came upon it based on the chords they are playing. The best part of the recording, though, is hearing the old friends crack each other up in between tossing off casually brilliant takes of a classic in the making.

This “Day Tripper” demo will appear on the upcoming special edition of Rubber Soul, which arrives Oct. 2. (“Day Tripper” didn’t appear on the original album, but was released as a single with “We Can Work It Out” around the same time in 1965.) The reissue will feature a newly mixed version of the album from producer Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell, as well as 24 early recordings.

Among those are 20 previously unreleased takes, and three previously unreleased home demos. Prior to dropping “Day Tripper (Songwriting Work Take),” the Beatles share an early take of the Rubber Soul gem, “Michelle.” The track list is also set to include “Little Girl,” a new Lennon demo that nobody even knew existed until it was recently uncovered by the Lennon estate.

Speaking with Rolling Stone recently about Rubber Soul and the upcoming reissue, Martin — son of legendary Beatles producer George Martin — said of the original LP, “It’s an album born out of frustration of not wanting to be little boys anymore,” he said. “It has so much depth to it. This is the first album where they weren’t trying to write a bunch of singles and deciding what should be the single.”

LOS ANGELES - 1978: Country singer Dolly Parton poses for a portrait session in 1978 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Harry Langdon/Getty Images)

Presidents across party lines celebrated Dolly Parton on Tuesday following her death, speaking to the country icon’s ability to transcend politics through her work that often spoke louder than words.

On Tuesday, former Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and George Bush each paid tribute to Parton, while President Donald Trump ordered that flags be flown at half-staff for the next week to honor “one of the greatest Country singers, and far beyond, EVER.”

In their statements, the former presidents praised both Parton’s music and philanthropic endeavors. In 2020, Parton donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University, which helped fund coronavirus research and Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine. The legendary singer also famously founded the Imagination Library, established in honor of her father Robert Lee Parton Sr., which distributes books to children in multiple countries.

In a statement posted on social media, Obama highlighted Parton’s humble roots, colossal impact in music and Hollywood, and her philanthropic work. “It’s hard to imagine many people having a bigger impact than Dolly Parton. Born in a one-room cabin, she earned 11 Grammys and an Emmy, built a business empire, helped millions of kids learn to read, and — as if that wasn’t enough — helped accelerate the research that led to the Moderna COVID vaccine,” Obama wrote. “What a life. Michelle and I are thinking of Dolly’s family and her many, many fans.”

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“Dolly Parton was one of a kind—a great songwriter and performer who told the stories of everyday Americans with honesty, humility, and heart,” wrote Clinton in another tribute. “She rose high from her East Tennessee roots and never forgot where she came from. And she always believed in giving back, especially in her efforts to promote literacy. Hillary and I were big fans and first saw her in 1974, and will always be grateful for the music and the memories.”

Bush and former first lady Laura Bush also joined fans in mourning Parton’s death. “We loved her music and her style. She was a great entertainer and even greater person,” wrote the former president. “We respected her work to promote literacy, advance health, and strengthen communities. Dolly was a talented and hardworking American who will be missed.”

Rather than taking a hard line on politics, Parton chose to shine a light on her values through both her work and own endeavors. The icon, a beloved supporter of the LGBTQ community, wrote and sang the Oscar-nominated song “Travelin’ Thru” from Transamerica, a 2005 movie about a transgender woman and her son. In 2017, Parton collaborated with her goddaughter, Miley Cyrus, to record “Rainbowland,” a hopeful tribute imagining a world of complete inclusivity and equality.

When speaking to Rolling Stone about the track the year it released, Parton called the song “one of those things we felt like the world needed a little message right now.” She continued, “If we could just do a little better, try a little harder, try to get along a little better, we could live in Rainbowland. If nothing else, if we tried a little harder at least we’d be a little more colorful than it is right now, a little brighter, a little shinier out there.”