FILE – This August 2008 file photo provided by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department shows rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight. Knight and two other people were injured by gunfire in at a West Hollywood nightclub early Sunday morning, Aug. 24, 2014, just hours before Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards. (AP Photo/Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, File) (The Associated Press)
Rap mogul Suge Knight, real name Marion Knight, was charged with murder early Friday after he turned himself in for a fatal hit-and-run in Los Angeles, CA.
Sgt. Diane Hecht of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s information office said Knight was arrested at about 3 a.m. local time and is being held at the West Hollywood sheriff’s station on $2 million bail.
James Blatt, Knight’s attorney, said he accidentally ran over and killed a friend and injured another man as he fled attackers.
“We are confident that once the investigation is completed, he will be totally exonerated,” Blatt told the Associated Press by phone late Thursday.
Knight was allegedly driving a red pickup truck that hit and ran over two men shortly before 3 p.m. in Compton, Calif., located just outside Los Angeles. The injured man was taken to a hospital and his condition was not immediately known. Authorities have not released any identifying information about either man as of now.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the incident resulted from an altercation that occurred on the set of the forthcoming film “Straight Outta Compton,” a biopic about the rap group NWA.
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Capt. John Corina said that the two men Knight argued with went to a nearby restaurant about 20 minutes after the confrontation, but alleged Knight followed the men there in the aforementioned red truck and ran them over in the parking lot. Witnesses told police and media the truck hit the men, then backed over them before fleeing the scene.
The incident is being investigated as a homicide.
“The people we talked to say it looked like it was an intentional act,” Corina told reporters, stating the empty truck was found late Thursday night in a West Los Angeles parking lot.
Unsurprisingly, attorney Blatt claimed it was an accident.
“He was in the process of being physically assaulted by two men and in an effort to escape he unfortunately hit two (other) individuals,” the lawyer said. “He was in his car trying to escape.”
Knight co-founded Death Row Records with Dr. Dre in 1991 and built it into the first successful mainstream rap label behind acts like NWA, Snoop Dogg, and Tupac Shakur.
Knight was at the wheel of the BMW Shakur was riding in when he was shot and killed following a boxing match in Las Vegas in 1996. Tupac’s death, which theorists have long tried to tie to Knight, was the beginning of the end for the label. Knight was forced to declare bankruptcy and auctioned off the company.
Aside from his public disagreements with Snoop Dogg, who Knight alleged was a rat, he has had repeated confrontations with the law.
In 1997, he was sentenced to nine years in prison for violating the terms of his probation in an earlier assault case. He was released in 2001. In 2008, he was again arrested in Las Vegas on suspicion of drug possession and aggravated assault, but pleaded guilty to a charge of misdemeanor battery the following year.
He is currently awaiting trial alongside comedian Katt Williams on charges of second degree robbery in connection with the theft of a photographer’s camera.
