Warning: This video contains graphic violence.
The horrifying footage above shows what appears to be 1990s West Coast rap mogul Suge Knight tear-assing around the parking lot of Tam’s Burgers in Compton, California, hitting two people with his car, one of whom died. The family of the deceased, Terry Carter, claim responsibility for the release of the surveillance video, telling TMZ—which released the clip early Monday—they’re glad “the public can see what actually occurred, and not be forced to speculate based on third party descriptions of the video.”
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Before the footage was released, Knight had claimed that the video was evidence for his side of the story. His legal team said the Tam’s Burgers incident, which took place in January, was an ambush, and that the footage proves that Cle “Bone” Sloan—the man he ran over but didn’t kill—had a gun. That’s not impossible, since someone runs up and takes something from the injured victim at about the one-minute mark. Knight’s claim that Sloan attacked him through a window right before he backed over him also seems at least somewhat plausible after viewing the footage.
Still, it’s hard to imagine that the gruesome video will exonerate Knight, since it appears to show him gunning it and plowing into Carter straight-on. Carter is then pulled under the truck and crushed by Knight’s tires at relatively high speed. It also remains to be seen how the footage might build a case that Carter was somehow conspiring with Sloan to attack Knight.
The Death Row Records founder was arrested on January 30. Knight reportedly got into an argument with the Straight Outta Compton film crew, and the conflict apparently continued at Tam’s Burgers, where things got violent.
Earlier Monday, Knight attended a brief hearing, his first since telling the court he had fired his attorney and that he was going blind. He hasn’t been released on bail, and has been locked up since the incident, despite three hospitalizations for his ongoing illness, the most recent of which was on March 2.
One way or another, the video is likely to play a significant role in determining Knight’s legal fate.
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