A notorious former gangbanger scoffed at lawyers asking him about Tupac Shakur’s murder — daring the court to “treat me as a hostile witness” in fiery testimony on Tuesday.
“Mob James” McDonald — former member of Compton’s Mob Piru Gang and private muscle for Death Row Records — scoffed at lawyers on both sides who peppered him with questions about the gang war that led to the rapper’s 1996 murder on the Las Vegas Strip.
“I’m aware of a lot of things. Things that was going on. People ain’t talked about it in 30 years. Today ain’t one of them,” McDonald said as the prosecution attempted to tie the now 63-year-old Duane “Keffe D” Davis — of the rival South Side Compton Crips gang — to the murder plot.
McDonald was a lieutenant for Suge Knight, a fellow Mob Piru member and the head of Shakur’s label Death Row Records.
“Me or anybody else raising up the dead is wrong,” McDonald said when asked to talk about the 30-year-old beef.
“I don’t want to send [Davis] to prison. Even though we don’t like each other,” McDonald declared before ripping the court for forcing him to dredge up memories of the old life he wants to put behind him and protect his grandchildren from.
McDonald’s testimony seemed to do little to help prove his former rival was the one who orchestrated Shakur’s murder.
Prosecutors say Davis gave a gun to his nephew Orlando Anderson and told him to shoot Shakur as an “act of revenge” after the rapper and his pals beat Anderson up.
It took more than 25 years to arrest and charge Davis, who has acknowledged that his nephew — now dead — was the one who fired the shots, but has denied giving the order.
McDonald had been managing security at Suge Knight’s Las Vegas club, where Knight and Shakur were headed during the ambush.
He said he knew who was and wasn’t present during the attack, but he wouldn’t name names — nor answer questions about the skirmishes that erupted in Compton after the murder.
“You’re asking me something that’s gonna hurt this dude!” McDonald said to Davis’ attorney Michael Sanft.
The testimony ended in a shouting match with McDonald throwing up his hands and saying “I’m not answering nothing. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Then, turning to Davis, he said: “Cover your lawyer, man. That dude is trippin.’”
“I’m not gonna send him to prison. You are,” he said of his old enemy.
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