Tupac Murder Trial Day 2: Mob James Refuses To Help Send Keffe D To Prison

Former Death Row security figure James “Mob James” McDonald delivered emotional and combative testimony about the aftermath of Tupac Shakur's shooting, the retaliation that followed in Compton and why he refuses to take responsibility for putting Duane “Keffe D” Davis behind bars.

Day 2 of the Tupac Shakur murder trial produced one of the most tense and revealing witnesses yet as former Death Row security figure James “Mob James” McDonald took the stand and openly wrestled with being pulled back into a world he says he left behind decades ago.

McDonald's testimony offered jurors a glimpse into the atmosphere surrounding Tupac's September 1996 shooting and the violence he says erupted afterward in Compton.

But McDonald also made something else unmistakably clear: he did not want to be in court, and he did not want his testimony to be responsible for sending Keffe D to prison.

Although McDonald acknowledged that he and Davis do not like one another, he repeatedly resisted questions he believed could hurt the defendant.

“Even though we don't like each other,” McDonald said while explaining his reluctance to answer certain questions. “I changed my life,” McDonald told the court. “I'm raising my grandkids.”

McDonald said he now finds himself teaching his grandchildren not to follow the same path he once did while simultaneously being forced to publicly revisit that past.

“Here I am explaining to people what I used to be,” McDonald testified. “And I'm not proud of it. I'm not proud of it at all.”

McDonald's internal conflict became increasingly apparent as attorneys pressed him for information. He acknowledged that some of the questions being asked could potentially hurt Davis' case.

McDonald wasn't telling the jury that Davis was innocent. Nor did he testify that he personally knew who killed Tupac. Instead, he appeared deeply uncomfortable with becoming a cooperating witness against someone connected to the gang culture he once inhabited.

“I'm Not Going to Send Him to Prison. You Are.”

McDonald confirmed that his appearance at the trial was compelled.Asked whether the subpoena was the only reason he was in court, McDonald responded “I don't have no other reason to be here.”

He testified that he was served in California and ultimately ordered to appear in Las Vegas. McDonald said his responsibilities today made attempting to avoid the order unrealistic.

“Me raising my grandkids, I'm not going to put my grandkids in the car and move somewhere so y'all can find me,” he said. “So I agreed to come,” McDonald said.

But complying with the subpoena did not mean McDonald was prepared to become a willing prosecution witness.

“You ask me something, I'll be honest,” McDonald said. “But you ask me something I don't want to talk about, you're going to have a problem. You're not going to talk to me and tell me, as a grown man, what I have to do up here.”

And then came the statement that captured the entire conflict surrounding his appearance:“I'm not going to send him to prison. You are.”

Despite his resistance, McDonald was clear about one of the central questions in the case. He did not personally witness who shot Tupac.

“You see who shot Tupac" the defense lawyer asked. “I told you no” McDonald responded

Later, attorneys pressed McDonald about how people back in Compton could have known what happened in Las Vegas if they weren't at the shooting. At one point, McDonald responded “How could people back home be eyewitness to something that happened in Vegas?”

When attorneys attempted to narrow the question to people who had been in Las Vegas and subsequently returned to California, McDonald pushed back against being confined to a yes-or-no answer.

“Are you trying to tell me to say something that you're not going to understand if you let me explain to you? I'm not answering nothing. I don't know what you're talking about.”

The exchange highlighted the unusual dynamic of the testimony: prosecutors and attorneys were attempting to establish what information circulated after the shooting, while McDonald was constantly policing the boundary between what he knew, what he had heard and what he was willing to say.

McDonald also made an intriguing statement when the questioning turned to the people present in Las Vegas. An attorney noted that McDonald didn't know exactly what happened at the shooting because he wasn't there.

“I know everybody that was there” the lawyer said.

“Talk to your lawyer, man,” McDonald said before adding, “I'm not going to explain that. I can't answer that.”

McDonald also offered testimony about how information surrounding Tupac's shooting could have traveled from Las Vegas to Los Angeles in the hours immediately following the attack.

According to McDonald, people left Las Vegas the same night Tupac was shot and headed back toward Compton.

“It only take two, three and a half hours to get home,” McDonald said.

He rejected the suggestion that people in California would have had difficulty learning what had happened.

“It wasn't a problem for people to find out what happened,” McDonald testified. “No problem at all.”

According to McDonald, people communicated with others back home and members of the entourage had multiple ways of exchanging information.

“They got on their phones and text people,” he said referring to walkie-talkies and other phones. “They had ways to communicate,” he said.

What happened after that information reached Compton was among the darker portions of McDonald's testimony. Asked to describe the tension after returning home, McDonald initially appeared reluctant to go into detail.

“It was a gang war. People were getting hurt,” McDonald said.

He testified that people were looking for members of particular neighborhoods and specifically referenced Orlando Anderson and others as targets.

“Orlando, him and certain other people were being assaulted because people wanted to kill them,” McDonald testified.

Anderson, a South Side Compton Crips member who had been involved in the MGM Grand casino fight with Tupac and members of the Death Row entourage hours before the rapper was shot, has long been a central figure in accounts surrounding the murder.

McDonald's testimony described an environment in which the Las Vegas shooting did not end the conflict it intensified it. He told the court that people were returning home, getting weapons and looking for members of rival neighborhoods.

“They had to pay back. Retaliation is a mug. This was for real,” McDonald added.

McDonald's testimony also generated a question directly from a juror concerning Death Row's security arrangements on the night Tupac was shot.The juror asked whether Reggie Wright Jr. had instructed security personnel not to carry firearms.

McDonald said he did not know what Wright may have told other people. But when the defense subsequently sought clarification about whether McDonald's group had guns, his answer was straightforward: “Yes, we did.”

Earlier in his testimony, McDonald also emphasized that he viewed Death Row's professional security operation as distinct from gang activity. “Security has nothing to do with the gang thing,” he testified.

Beyond the historical details, McDonald's appearance offered the jury something more complicated: a firsthand demonstration of the difficulty of reconstructing a murder case nearly three decades later.

“I apologize to all of you,” he added before being excused from the witness stand.

McDonald's testimony did not answer the biggest question surrounding the case: who actually fired the shots that killed Tupac Shakur? He explicitly said he did not see the shooter.

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