Police seized laptops, memoir from Vegas-area home of witness to Tupac Shakur's 1996 killing

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A home that Las Vegas police raided this week in connection with the 1996 drive-by shooting of Tupac Shakur is tied to one of the only surviving witnesses to the crime, a man long known to investigators whose nephew was seen as a suspect shortly after the rapper's killing.

Detectives sought items "concerning the murder of Tupac Shakur" from Duane "Keffe D" Davis, according to warrant documents obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

Davis, now 60, is a self-described "gangster" and the uncle of Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, one of Shakur's known rivals. Anderson denied involvement in Shakur's killing, and died two years later in a shooting in Compton, California.

Police reported collecting multiple computers, a cellphone and hard drive, "documentary documents," a Vibe magazine that featured Shakur, "purported marijuana," several .40-calibre bullets, two "tubs containing photographs" and a copy of Davis' 2019 tell-all memoir, "Compton Street Legend."

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department confirmed it served a search warrant Monday in the neighbouring city of Henderson. The department hasn't said whether investigators expect to make a first-ever arrest in the slaying of the rapper nearly 27 years ago.

Residents of the neighbourhood in foothills about 20 miles (32 kilometres) southeast of the Las Vegas Strip said they saw officers detain two people outside the home Monday night while investigators searched the one-story property.

"There were cruisers and SWAT vehicles. They had lights shining on the house," said Don Sansouci, who watched from the sidewalk as a man and a woman stepped out of a house to bullhorn commands, placed their hands behind their heads and slowly walked backwards toward officers amid a swirl of blue and red police lights.

The case is being presented to a grand jury in Las Vegas, according to a person with direct knowledge of the investigation who was not authorised to speak publicly. The timing and results of those proceedings was unclear, and the person did not identify the two people whom police encountered at the house.

News of the search breathed new life into Shakur's long-unsolved killing, which has been surrounded by conspiracy theories. There has never been any arrest and attention on the case has endured for decades.

On the night of Sept. 7, 1996, Shakur was riding in a black BMW driven by Death Row Records founder Marion "Suge" Knight in a convoy of about 10 cars. They were waiting at a red light a block from the Las Vegas Strip when a white Cadillac pulled up next to them and gunfire erupted. Shakur was shot multiple times and died days later.

Knight, now 58, was wounded but recovered. He was sentenced in October 2018 to 28 years in prison for running over a man with his pickup truck, killing him, in a Compton burger stand parking lot in January 2015.

The Shakur shooting unfolded shortly after a casino brawl earlier in the evening involving Anderson, Shakur and their associates.

There were many witnesses, but the investigation stalled because people refused to cooperate, Las Vegas police said in the past.

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