Witness clashes with defense in Tupac Shakur murder trial

A former Death Row Records associate grew combative on the stand Tuesday in the Tupac Shakur murder trial, saying he did not want his testimony to help send defendant Duane “Keffe D” Davis to prison.

James “Mob James” McDonald told the court he had been threatened with contempt if he refused to testify. Under cross-examination by defense attorney Michael Sanft, he repeatedly resisted questions about who was responsible for Shakur’s death and what people in Compton were saying after the 1996 shooting.

“You’re asking me something that wouldn’t be good for him,” McDonald said, pointing toward Davis. “I’m not going to send him to prison, you are.”

Davis is charged with murder in the killing of Shakur, who was shot in a drive-by attack on a Las Vegas street after a Mike Tyson boxing match on Sept. 7, 1996. Shakur, 25, died in a hospital six days later. Davis has denied the charges and pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors allege Davis, a former leader of the South Side Compton Crips street gang, planned the shooting after his nephew, Orlando Anderson, was involved in a fight with Shakur in Las Vegas hours earlier. They argue Davis believed the attack on Anderson could not “go unanswered.”

McDonald, a former member of the Mob Piru, an offshoot of the Bloods, and an enforcer connected to Suge Knight’s Death Row Records, testified that he was not with Shakur when the shooting occurred. He said he was working as head of security for Knight’s Club 662 that night and had “at least 30, 40” of his “homeboys” there, separate from security hired by Reggie Wright Jr.

McDonald said people returned to the club after the shooting saying Shakur had been talking and was expected to survive. But he said word spread quickly about who was believed to be responsible.

“When we got back to Compton, it was a gang war. People were getting hurt,” McDonald testified. “Orlando, him and certain other people were being sought because people wanted to kill them.”

Asked whether they were involved in Shakur’s murder, McDonald exclaimed, “In the murder of Tupac,” then waved his arms in frustration. “Talk to your lawyer, man, this dude is tripping,” he told Davis.

McDonald also described his discomfort with revisiting that period of his life. “I changed my life. I’m raising my grandkids, teaching them never to be like their Pawpaw,” he said, adding that he was not proud of his past. When his testimony ended, he addressed Davis directly: “What you are going through brother is what you going through. I don’t want to be a part of it.”

Other witnesses testified Tuesday about the shooting and its aftermath. Dr. Lisa Gavin, a medical examiner, reviewed Shakur’s autopsy report and photographs and said the evidence showed his death was a homicide. Some of Shakur’s relatives left the courtroom during the display of graphic images, while others looked away, The Guardian reported.

Former Las Vegas police detective Dean O’Kelley described responding to the shooting scene, seeing bullet casings in the street and using traffic cones to protect the area until investigators arrived.

Reggie Wright Jr., a former Compton police officer who later led security for Death Row Records, also testified. Asked whether he had anything to do with Shakur’s murder, he replied, “Absolutely not.” Wright said he called his father, also a Compton police officer, several times that night to warn that the incident could affect gang dynamics in Compton.

Days before the trial, Davis said evidence pointed instead to Wright, the BBC reported. Davis’s defense questioned Wright about his role protecting Knight, who was in the car with Shakur when the rapper was shot, and about Wright’s later rise at Death Row Records after Knight left the label.

The case had gone largely cold for decades before Davis made public statements about it, including in a memoir in which he said he was a passenger in the vehicle that fired into Shakur’s car and had supplied the gun used in the killing. Davis has since distanced himself from the book, saying he did not write all of it and that parts were fictionalized to sell more copies.