After previously claiming in an interview with The Art of Dialogue that the police didn’t really care about finding Tupac Shakur’s killer, Shakur’s former protégé, Napoleon, insisted on the platform that the late rapper would not want his alleged murderer, Duane “Keffe D” Davis, to languish in prison.
In August, Hip Hop DX reported that Napoleon described the LVPD’s lack of urgency as something born out of a vendetta, saying, “The police is like a gang in the whole U.S.A. You do something against their so-called ‘brothers in blue,’ and whether it’s in Atlanta, you on the radar for all the police across America.
“They didn’t really like [2Pac] because of that. Shakur was acquitted in 1994
after shooting two off-duty police officers in 1993. Therefore, when [2Pac] died, you think they really cared about solving his murder? To them, it was like, ‘Okay, we got rid of him.’”When asked about his reaction to Davis being arrested in connection with the murder of Shakur, Napoleon told the interviewer on an Oct. 3 appearance, “You know 27 years went by, I really pretty much was expecting nothing to come out of it. I still gotta see how the trial go, you know what I mean? I feel like he told on his self, it’s like one of these things where you gotta realize he put himself in that situation.”
Later, the conversation turned to what Shakur would have wanted to come out of this development, with Napoleon saying, “If Pac was alive, Pac survived the shooting, Pac himself wouldn’t want Keffe D to go to jail. A lot of people might say they wouldn’t understand it, but me knowing Pac, Pac wouldn’t want to get no law involved because Pac would understand that he did something in the streets, what came back was street stuff.”
Napoleon also revealed that even while Shakur was dying, he refused to tell police who shot him, even though he probably had an idea who it was because of the fight he’d just been in at the MGM Grand a few hours earlier. Napoleon also asserted that one reason why the Las Vegas Police Department went after Davis was due to the embarrassment of having someone involved in a murder bragging about it in front of every camera he could find, and the police most likely felt backed into a corner.
According to TMZ, the survivor of the shooting, Marion “Suge” Knight, agreed with Napoleon’s take, while also casting doubt on the narrative that Orlando Anderson was the shooter. Knight also said that Anderson was one of his supporters at his hearing, and that under no circumstances would Knight testify against Davis were he to be called as a witness by the state. Knight’s refusal to testify is in line with his association with the Blood “Piru” street gang, which was cited by the Las Vegas Police Department when it announced it had arrested Davis for the alleged murder of Shakur.
According to CBS News, Davis made his first appearance before the court on Oct. 4 in Las Vegas. He requested a two-week extension because his counsel could not make it to his appointment, and Judge Tara Jones granted the extension. Davis is scheduled for another court date on Oct. 19; after he enters his plea, a date for his trial will be set.
RELATED CONTENT: Suge Knight Ain’t No Snitch, Denounces Recent Arrest In Tupac Murder Case