In late January, Suge Knight was turned away from the Los Angeles set of a commercial for the Straight Outta Compton movie, a biopic of the rap group NWA.
Right afterward, the hip-hop guru allegedly ran over and killed a man with his truck at a nearby fast-food spot in Compton. He is now charged with murder, and is being held without bail.
A video posted on Monday by TMZ appears to show the incident in gory detail – and may ultimately determine his fate. The celebrity gossip site reports that both Knight and prosecutors each believe the video helps their cases. But will the clip exonerate him, or will it put him behind bars permanently?
Some details of the incident are known: Knight, having been refused entry to the set where his one-time Death Row Records collaborator Dr Dre was working on an ad for the film, began to argue with Cle “Bone” Sloan, who was working as site security. While leaving, Knight agreed to meet up at Tam’s Burgers with Terry Carter, who hoped to reunite Knight and Dr Dre.
But as Knight and Carter spoke, Sloan arrived on the scene and allegedly began punching Knight through the window of the latter’s red Ford F-150 Raptor. Knight then drove a short way away and entered the Tam’s drive-thru lane.
This is where the TMZ video picks up. In it, Sloan appears to come up to the car again and continue fighting with Knight. Knight does not get out of his vehicle to fight. Instead, he throws the vehicle into reverse, knocking Sloan to the ground. Carter has by now come on to the scene, standing a few feet away from Sloan. But his positioning proves fatal, as the driver suddenly hurtles toward the men, running over both Sloan and Cater before driving off.
Sloan survived, but Carter died from the impact shortly thereafter.
The video appears to confirm initial accounts of the incident – including those shared with the Guardian – and seems likely to be considered at Knight’s trial, in which he faces charges of murder, attempted murder, and hit and run. It doesn’t seem to help his case: though his previous lawyer (whom he has now fired) claimed Knight was simply trying to get away, he appears to have aimed his truck directly at Sloan.
That said, Knight’s motivations aren’t clear. There is a brief pause in the video after he backs up but before he runs over Sloan – which could imply that running over Sloan was a coolly calculated move. However, a source who was on the Straight Outta Compton set but asked to remain anonymous told the Guardian that after Knight backed up, an associate of Sloan’s was headed toward the rear of Knight’s truck, allegedly to attack him. (Knight’s truck is out of the TMZ’s video’s frame when this would have been happening.)
So it’s possible Knight may have seen this new man coming and feared for his life, and thus ran over the other two in his haste trying to escape. It’s impossible to tell from the video alone.
The video does, however, bolster one of Knight’s other claims: that he didn’t intend to hurt Carter. Indeed, as our source and others have corroborated, Knight and Carter were friends. And in the video, Carter appears to be collateral damage. In the midst of a chaotic situation, it seems highly probable that Knight didn’t realize Carter was in the line of fire, and hit him accidentally.
Whatever the case, for Knight – a former mogul once worth tens of millions of dollars, on the strength of albums like Dr Dre’s The Chronic and Tupac’s All Eyez on Me – time may be running out. Though he escaped blame for the murder of rapper Notorious BIG, for which he was a prime suspect, and has avoided lengthy terms for a number of other convictions and charges, he seems unlikely to get off this time.
Knight is reportedly feeling the stress, according to the Los Angeles Times, and was taken to a jail infirmary last week. He has fired a pair of lawyers in recent weeks, said he has lost some 30 pounds in jail, and believes he is going blind.
He is scheduled to appear in a Los Angeles court on Monday for a bail review hearing.
