Fighters, survivors of deadly Compton gang wars relive the dark past at Tupac Shakur murder trial
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Set us as preferred They are graying and a bit world-weary now as they file into a courtroom in Las Vegas.More than three decades ago, they were young men at the center of a violent gang war that took many lives, notably that of rapper Tupac Shakur.They were the lucky ones, surviving the bloodshed.But they are now reliving those dark times as the rapper’s murder trial lays bare the complex relationships and feud between the Crips and Bloods and between East Coast and West Coast rappers in the early 1990s.Shakur’s killing on the Las Vegas Strip in 1996 blew these tensions wide open, though the case remained unsolved for decades.Now, Las Vegas prosecutors are trying a longtime Compton gang leader, Duane “Keffe D” Davis, in the murder and using the words of both him and other associates to build their case.“Any time you deal with gang, the gang life, it is going to be violence at any given time,” testified James McDonald, a.k.a.
Mob James, a onetime associate of Death Row Records boss Marion “Suge” Knight, who was in the same car as Shakur when the rapper was killed.Prosecutors accuse Davis of orchestrating the murder and are using his past statements to build their case.He denies the charge.The Sept.
7, 1996, shooting, they said, was rooted in a war between Southside Crips-Burris Street, led by Davis, and Mob Piru, a gang long associated with Death Row Records.Shakur was closely affiliated with Death Row.The rapper was killed after a violent confrontation at a Mike Tyson fight earlier that night in Las Vegas.
Clark County Chief Deputy Dist.Atty.
Binu Palal showed video of Shakur’s entourage attacking Davis’ nephew Orlando Anderson.Travon Lane, a Mob Piru member, had spotted Anderson in the MGM Grand hotel lobby.
Months earlier, Anderson stole Lane’s Death Row Records chain in a Lakewood mall during ...