Former gang leader pleads not guilty to killing Tupac Shakur

A former Southern California street gang leader pleaded not guilty Thursday to organizing a 1996 Las Vegas drive-by shooting that killed Tupac Shakur.

Duane Keith “Keffe D” Davis, the only survivor of the vehicle from which shots were fired and the only person charged in the case, stood in shackles before Clark County District Judge Tierra Jones.

In court Thursday, special public defenders Robert Arroyo and Charles Cano represented Davis. Davis lost his bid to hire Ross Goodman, who represented him two weeks ago, because prosecutors lack witnesses and key evidence, such as a gun or vehicle, for the 27-year-old killing.

Davis, 60, is from Compton. He was arrested Sept. 29 outside a suburban Henderson home where Las Vegas police served a search warrant July 17, reviving one of hip-hop music's greatest mysteries.

Davis is accused of giving a gun to a Cadillac passenger in the back seat before the car-to-car gunfire that killed Shakur and wounded rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight at an intersection off the Las Vegas Strip. One week later, Shakur died. He was 25.

Knight, 58, is serving 28 years in California for killing a Compton businessman in 2015. He hasn't responded to his attorneys' Davis arrest inquiries.

Prosecutors say Shakur was killed in Las Vegas because East Coast Bloods gang members and West Coast Crips, including Davis, competed in “gangsta rap.”

The grand jury was told the Sept. 7, 1996 Las Vegas shooting was retaliation for Shakur and Davis' nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson's casino brawl hours earlier.