14 DAY TRIAL // Hip hop mogul Suge Knight, cofounder of Death Row Records, is wanted by police for questioning for his alleged involvement in a homicide case, a hit and run resulting in two injured and one dead, which took place in a parking lot in the Westwood section of Los Angeles.
Knight is believed to have gotten into two separate fights before jumping behind the wheel of his car and backing it up to run over the victims. One of them is believed to have been Terry Carter, who died later at the hospital, People Magazine reports.
Carter had arrived with Knight in the car and was actually a good friend of his.
Knight got into two fights, was scared for his life
Reports of what happened in the minutes before the hit and run are fuzzy, with police refusing to say anything on the record yet because this is still an ongoing investigation.
However, People magazine notes that the hit and run had only 2 victims, one of whom died at the hospital, while TMZ says there were 3 casualties in total.
According to the former, it is not yet sure if Suge was driving the car, but the latter says that he was: apparently, he was afraid for his life when a second fight broke and threatened to get even worse, so he thought jumping behind the wheel and running people over was his best ticket out.
Suge Knight probably didn’t see Carter, who was about to go back in the car in the passenger seat to leave, or he wouldn’t have done what he did, considering the two were friends and had arrived together.
“We can't determine whether it was accidental or intentional,” a police spokesperson says for People magazine.
The first fight took place on the set of a movie with Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, who were not there at the time. Knight wanted to get on the set but was blocked by security, and things became violent very soon. It is unsure if the men he ran over later were the same he’d gotten into this heated exchange with.
Knight is considered armed and dangerous
Police are investigating the case as a homicide, but they’re not saying anything on the record until they have Suge Knight in custody for questioning. TMZ says that the music mogul’s car has been found abandoned and that both Suge and his attorney are unreachable at the moment.
The star is now wanted by police, and a warning was sent out that he may be armed and dangerous.
The same report says that he acted in self-defense, because he thought he was in immediate danger – and he is still in a very delicate condition after being shot 6 times in a brawl that broke out at one of the parties before the MTV VMAs in August 2014.
[Update, January 30, 2015, later]: Suge Knight has turned himself in, the LA Times confirms. His bail has been set at $2 million (€1.76 million), and he is considered the prime suspect in the ongoing homicide case. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to 30 years behind bars, because of his prior arrests and convictions.