ABOVE: Marion “Suge” Knight appeared Monday in a Los Angeles courtroom just as video appeared online purporting to show the fatal hit-and-run collision for which he’s charged with murder
LOS ANGELES – Newly released video graphically depicts former rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight running over two men with his pickup truck but leaves questions about an attack that he says forced him to speed away from the deadly crash.
Surveillance footage from a Compton fast food restaurant shows one of the men getting knocked down as the pickup reverses. The truck then speeds forward, running over the fallen man and a second man.
But an attorney for the Death Row Records co-founder says the video posted by celebrity news website TMZ shows that the men attacked his client before the deadly January encounter and that it will help his defence against murder and attempted murder charges.
“They attacked ‘Suge’ without question,” Matthew Fletcher told reporters after a Monday court hearing.
The video shows a red pickup truck pulling into the restaurant parking lot and a man approaching the driver’s side window. There is commotion in the cabin of Knight’s truck, but no clear footage of the purported attack.
Sheriff’s officials declined to comment on the video’s contents and said they did not release it.
“I told ‘Suge’: ‘This helps you beyond any stretch of the imagination,'” Fletcher said, adding that the law doesn’t require someone to flee an attack.
Authorities allege Knight intentionally ran over the men, killing Terry Carter and seriously injuring Cle “Bone” Sloan. He has pleaded not guilty to murder, attempted murder and hit-and-run charges and faces up to life in prison if convicted of killing Carter, 55, on Jan. 29.
Knight was a key player in the gangster rap scene that flourished in the 1990s, and his label once listed Dr. Dre, Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg among its artists. Knight lost control of the company after it was forced into bankruptcy.
Knight, 49, did not speak at Monday’s brief hearing, which came a week after he was taken to a hospital from his previous court appearance, where he told a judge he was going blind and had fired his legal team.
His previous attorney, David Kenner, has also said that he reviewed surveillance footage taken from the restaurant and it showed Knight being attacked.
An email message sent to a lawyer representing Carter’s family was not immediately returned Monday.
Knight is scheduled to return to court on March 20.
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