Tupac Shakur was shot at the intersection of East Flamingo Road and Koval Lane in Las Vegas, one block east of the Strip, on the night of September 7, 1996. He was riding in a black BMW stopped at a red light when a white Cadillac pulled alongside and a gunman opened fire. He died six days later, and nearly three decades passed before anyone was convicted.
- The exact spot: East Flamingo Road and Koval Lane, in front of the former Maxim Hotel, roughly one block east of the Las Vegas Strip.
- The date and time: September 7, 1996, at about 11:15 p.m., after the Tyson boxing match at the MGM Grand.
- What happened: A white Cadillac pulled up to the BMW carrying Tupac, and a shooter fired from the back seat, hitting him four times.
- The outcome: Tupac died on September 13, 1996, at University Medical Center. He was 25.
- The case: Duane Keffe D Davis was convicted of first-degree murder in 2026 and sentenced to 40 years to life, the only person ever charged.
What’s in This Guide
The Short Answer: Flamingo Road and Koval Lane
The shooting happened at the corner of East Flamingo Road and Koval Lane, a busy intersection that sits about one block east of Las Vegas Boulevard (the Strip). At the time, the spot was directly in front of the Maxim Hotel. Today the same corner is a short walk from the resorts clustered around the center Strip, yet most visitors pass through it without realizing what took place there.
In plain terms: Tupac was not shot on the Strip itself or inside a casino. He was shot at a street intersection just off the Strip while the car he was in waited at a red light. The location is officially within Paradise, Nevada, the unincorporated township that covers most of the Strip corridor.
The intersection is easy to picture if you know the center Strip. Flamingo Road runs east to west and crosses Las Vegas Boulevard between Bellagio and the Horseshoe (the former Bally’s). Koval Lane is the first major street parallel to and east of the Strip. Where those two roads meet is the site. The map below pins the exact crossing.
Source: Wikipedia: Murder of Tupac Shakur | Roadside America: Where Tupac Was Shot
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What Happened on September 7, 1996
Earlier that evening, Tupac Shakur and Death Row Records founder Marion Suge Knight attended the Bruce Seldon versus Mike Tyson heavyweight title fight at the MGM Grand. Tyson won in under two minutes. On the way out, a confrontation broke out in the MGM Grand lobby between Tupac’s group and a young man named Orlando Anderson. That lobby fight, caught on casino surveillance video, became a central thread in the investigation that followed.
After the altercation, the group left the MGM and headed toward Club 662, a venue Knight was connected to. Knight drove a black 1996 BMW 750iL sedan with Tupac in the front passenger seat, part of a small convoy of vehicles. They traveled east off the Strip and turned onto Koval Lane, then stopped at the red light at East Flamingo Road.
Timeline of the night and after
At about 11:15 p.m., with the BMW stopped at the light, a white, late-model, four-door Cadillac pulled up on the passenger side. A shooter in the back seat of the Cadillac fired a rapid burst at the car. Tupac was hit four times, with two rounds striking his chest. Knight was grazed but drove away from the scene as the Cadillac fled.
Tupac was rushed to University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, the region’s only Level I trauma center. He underwent surgery and spent six days in critical condition before he died on September 13, 1996. He was 25 years old.
Source: Wikipedia: Murder of Tupac Shakur | Las Vegas Sun retrospective
The Shooting Site vs. the MGM Grand: Clearing Up the Confusion
The single most common mix-up is between the MGM Grand and the actual shooting site. Both places matter to the story, but they are two different locations roughly a mile apart, and they played two very different roles that night.
| Location | What happened there | Distance from the Strip |
|---|---|---|
| MGM Grand | Tyson fight and the lobby confrontation with Orlando Anderson | On the Strip |
| Flamingo Road and Koval Lane | The shooting, at a red light around 11:15 p.m. | About one block east of the Strip |
A persistent piece of misinformation claims Tupac was shot in a parking lot at the MGM Grand. He was not. The MGM is where the fight and the lobby scuffle happened. Every detailed law-enforcement and news account places the shooting itself at the Flamingo and Koval intersection, well away from the casino. If you see the MGM parking lot described as the shooting site, that source is wrong.
Source: News 3 Las Vegas | Wikipedia: Murder of Tupac Shakur
From Unsolved to a Conviction: The Investigation
For most of the time since 1996, the case was officially unsolved. Orlando Anderson, the man from the MGM lobby fight, was long suspected but never charged, and he was killed in an unrelated 1998 shooting. Year after year, retrospectives on the anniversary of the killing opened with the same line: no arrests.
That changed in 2023. On September 29, 2023, Las Vegas police arrested Duane Keffe D Davis, Anderson’s uncle, after a grand jury indicted him for first-degree murder. Prosecutors built their case in part on Davis’s own public accounts, including a memoir and interviews in which he described being in the Cadillac the night Tupac was shot.
In August 2026, a Las Vegas jury convicted Davis of first-degree murder. On October 13, 2026, he was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison. The Associated Press described him as the only person ever charged in Tupac’s death. Davis, who had repeatedly denied involvement, indicated he intends to appeal.
Source: Associated Press via Anchorage Daily News | Fox5 Las Vegas
Visiting the Site Today
If you want to see the location in person, set your expectations first. There is no official memorial, plaque, or marker at the intersection. Flamingo Road and Koval Lane is a wide, busy crossing surrounded by hotels, parking structures, and resort traffic. To a passerby it looks like any other center-Strip intersection.
The closest thing to a tribute sits nearby: fans have long treated two utility poles close to the corner, on the south side of Flamingo Road, as informal shrines, covering them with graffiti messages to Tupac. The poles are painted over every so often, and the messages always return. A 2023 visitor note on Roadside America put it plainly, warning that there is “not much to see” beyond knowing what happened there.
For many visitors, the point is not a photo of a landmark but standing at the spot and taking in how ordinary it is. A world-famous artist’s life ended at a nondescript traffic light a block off the neon. If you add it to a Las Vegas itinerary, treat it as a quiet, reflective stop rather than a tourist attraction, and be mindful of heavy traffic at the corner.
Getting there is simple. The intersection is minutes from the central resorts, and street parking is limited, so many people see it as part of a wider loop through Las Vegas history and sightseeing. A private driver who knows the city can fold it into a larger tour of landmarks without the hassle of parking, rideshare surge pricing, or navigating the Strip’s one-way maze. Personal Sedan Services offers chauffeured local transportation across the Las Vegas valley for exactly this kind of flexible, stop-and-go sightseeing.
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Source: Roadside America: Where Tupac Was Shot
Common Questions
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Methodology and sources: This article draws on the public record of the case, including the Wikipedia overview of the murder of Tupac Shakur, local Las Vegas reporting from the Las Vegas Sun and News 3 Las Vegas, the Roadside America field listing for the site, and Associated Press coverage of the 2026 conviction and sentencing of Duane Keffe D Davis. Times and sequence of events reflect the most detailed accounts; some specifics, such as the exact number of shots fired, remain disputed across sources.
