Following the arrest of Duane “Keffe D” Davis on Friday in connection to the fatal drive-by shooting of Tupac Shakur in 1996, Shakur’s sister and Jada Pinkett Smith spoke on the “pivotal moment.”
Sekyiwa ‘Set’ Shakur, who is president of The Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation, shared in a statement that while the arrest was a victory, she is reserving judgment “until all the facts and legal proceedings are complete.”
“This is no doubt a pivotal moment. The silence of the past 27 years surrounding this case has spoken loudly in our community,” she wrote. “It’s important to me that the world, the country, the justice system, and our people acknowledge the gravity of the passing of this man, my brother, my mother’s son, my father’s son. His life and death matters, and should not go unsolved or unrecognized, so yes, today is a victory but I will reserve judgement until all the facts and legal proceedings are complete. There have been multiple hands involved and there remains so much surrounding the life and death of my brother Tupac and our Shakur family overall. We are seeking real justice, on all fronts.”
Following the news of the arrest, Smith, who befriended Shakur early in the rapper’s career, shared on Instagram stories Friday: “Now I hope we can get some answers and have some closure. R.I.P Pac”
Davis was charged with murder with use of a deadly weapon, and prosecutors announced in court Friday that a Nevada grand jury indicted him in the killing. Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo called Davis the “on-ground, on-site commander” who “ordered the death” of Shakur.
“It wasn’t until 2018 that this case was reinvigorated as additional information came to light related to this homicide,” Lieutenant Jason Johansson said in a press conference Friday. “Specifically, Duane Davis’s own admission to his involvement in this homicide investigation that he provided to numerous different media outlets.”
Tupac was shot on Sept. 7, 1996 in Las Vegas as he was leaving the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon fight at the MGM Grand and was on the way to a nightclub with Death Row Records co-founder Suge Knight. A white Cadillac pulled up next to their vehicle on the passenger side, and an unidentified gunman fired 14 shots. Shakur was hit four times and died several days later, on Sept. 13, 1996.
Before his death, Shakur spoke with Rolling Stone and about his time at the prestigious Baltimore School for the Arts, which he was accepted into in 1986. Shakur and Sekyiwa grew up in the Bronx and Harlem in New York with their mother, staying in homeless shelters and with relatives and friends.
“That school was saving me, you know what I’m sayin’?” said Shakur. “I was writing poetry and shit, and I became known as MC New York because I was rapping, and then I was doing the acting thing. It was a whole other experience for me to be able to express myself — not just around black people but also around white people and other kinds of people. It was the freest I ever felt in my life.”