A retired Las Vegas police officer revealed Tupac Shakur’s chilling final words in court as the long-awaited murder trial of the rapper’s accused killer began.
Garry Dale, a former officer with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, took the stand on Monday as the prosecution’s first witness in the trial of Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63. Dale testified that he rode in the ambulance with Shakur, 25, on the night of September 7, 1996, after the rapper was shot multiple times in a drive-by attack near the Las Vegas Strip.
Dale told jurors he repeatedly pressed Shakur to identify who had opened fire on him. The officer said he was trying to gather information while paramedics rushed the critically wounded rapper to the hospital.
“I was trying to talk to him to find out what had happened, gather information to see who had fired at them,” Dale testified.
“He was still talking, and I was trying to convince him to tell me the name of whoever his assailants were.”
But Shakur refused to give up a name. Instead, Dale testified, the rapper responded with a defiant phrase he repeated multiple times.
“No, we’ll take care of it,” Dale said Shakur told him.
The officer said Shakur repeated that response “a couple times” but would not say anything more about the identity of his attackers.
The encounter in the ambulance carried extra weight because Dale had crossed paths with Shakur just minutes before the fatal shooting. Dale testified that he and another officer had pulled over the black BMW that Shakur was riding in with Death Row Records boss Marion “Suge” Knight because the vehicle lacked a visible rear license plate.
Dale said the occupants identified themselves as Shakur and Knight. The officer instructed them to put the license plate back on and let them go with a warning. About ten minutes later, Dale said, he responded to a shots-fired call and found EMTs pulling Shakur from the car. Knight had been grazed by bullets but told officers to focus on Shakur.
Dale jumped in the ambulance with Shakur and began his unsuccessful effort to learn who had shot him.
The testimony came during the first day of a trial that prosecutors expect will last about a month, with 35 to 45 witnesses planned. Davis, described by prosecutors as a South Side Crips leader, was indicted in September 2023 and is the only person ever charged in connection with Shakur’s killing. He has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang.
Prosecutors allege Davis helped organize the attack after Shakur and Knight were involved in an altercation with Davis’ nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, a Crips member, earlier that night at the MGM Grand following a Mike Tyson fight. They claim Davis later provided the gun and called for Shakur to be shot in retaliation. Davis is not accused of personally pulling the trigger.
On the trial’s second day, forensic pathologist Dr. Lisa Gavin testified about Shakur’s fatal injuries. Jurors were shown autopsy photographs that were not publicly broadcast, including images of Shakur in a green body bag and his bloodied body with medical tubes still in place from the six days he spent hospitalized before dying on September 13, 1996.
Gavin testified that one bullet entered around Shakur’s right armpit, passed through a lung and into his chest, causing the lung to collapse and bleed. Doctors removed the damaged lung during emergency surgery in an effort to save him. Another bullet struck his right thigh and traveled into his abdomen, damaging his intestines. Gavin said there were no wounds to Shakur’s head and that she could not establish whether all the bullets were the same caliber.
Some of Shakur’s relatives left the courtroom during the graphic testimony. His cousin Zayd Akinyela remained and spoke to reporters outside afterward.
“I feel like the details, especially for people that are close to him, honestly for me helps, helps the grief process. I think we’ve been waiting 30 years to grieve properly,” Akinyela said. “A lot of people don’t get to grieve until they understand what happened to their loved one and how it happened.”
He added, “That’s why I wanted to stay and just see for my own personal closure.”
In the viral moment that preceded the trial, Shakur’s killing remained one of hip-hop’s most enduring unsolved mysteries for nearly three decades. The rapper was in the passenger seat of Knight’s black BMW when a white Cadillac pulled alongside them at a red light near the Las Vegas Strip and gunfire erupted. Knight drove away with a flat tire and was later stopped by police on Las Vegas Boulevard. Paramedics administered first aid before Shakur lost consciousness. He died six days later at University Medical Center from respiratory failure caused by his wounds. The other three men allegedly in the Cadillac with Davis that night — Anderson, Deandrae “Freaky” Smith and Terry “Bubble Up” Brown — have all died in the years since, leaving Davis as the last living suspect.
Retired homicide detective Brent Becker testified remotely that investigators eventually identified Anderson as a suspect but faced significant limits. No witnesses could identify the shooter, and photo lineups failed to produce positive identifications. Becker said Knight showed up to a police interview with attorneys, which he found odd for a victim, and described Knight’s interview as practiced and timid.
“I thought he lied to us,” Becker testified.
Another witness, former Mob Piru Bloods gang affiliate James McDonald, who worked security for Death Row Records, appeared under court order but refused to answer questions about the night of the shooting. He explicitly asked to be treated as a hostile witness and told reporters outside court he was “not going to send another Black man to prison.”
Court proceedings are scheduled to resume Wednesday in Las Vegas with a planned half-day of testimony.