During the second day of Tupac Shakur's murder trial, a member of his entourage named James "Mob James" McDonald said he was threatened with being held in contempt of court if he did not testify on Tuesday 18 August.
He was asked repeatedly whether he could identify the person responsible for Shakur's death, to which he replied: "You're asking me something that wouldn't be good for him," as he pointed at Duane "Keffe D" Davis and said: "I don't want to send you to prison."
Charges and Allegations
Davis has been charged with Tupac's murder and is accused of organising the rapper's death, to which he has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors allege that Davis, who is the former leader of the South Side Compton Crips street gang, planned the shooting that killed Shakur after his nephew Orlando Anderson fought with the rapper.
Shakur was killed at 25 in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas on 7 September 1996, just after a Mike Tyson boxing match. When Shakur was in an ambulance after he was shot, he refused to talk to police about what had happened and told an officer: "We'll take care of it," before he died just six days later.
Defence Claims Police Misconduct
In their own opening statements, Davis' defence team claimed there were significant problems with the police investigation. Lawyer Michael Sanft, who is representing Davis, alleged that many reports that had been made by one specific detective on the case had disappeared.
He also claimed that many people working within Compton's police department, who are overseeing the case, had ties to people within gangs. As a result, misconduct and incompetence lead to holes in the initial murder investigation. This included allegations that another detective had issues with the testing of the supposed murder weapon. He went on to claim that a "fake" gun was given to police to test instead of the real thing.
