Suge Knight Has Been Incarcerated in a California Prison Since 2018 — What Did He Do?

Anyone familiar with Suge Knight and his involvement in the East Coast–West Coast hip-hop rivalry in the mid-1990s knows that Knight is not someone to mess with. As the founder and former CEO of Los Angeles-based Death Row Records, Knight ruled over the West Coast rap scene. The East Coast was handled by the controversial Sean “Puffy” Combs, who founded Bad Boy Records in 1993. Their artists were caught in the middle.

Before he became a music mogul, Knight played football in college and then very briefly for the NFL. His rap sheet is prolific and includes multiple stints in prison, which is where he is as of the time of this writing. Why is Suge Knight in prison? Here’s what we know.

In September 2018, Knight was sentenced to 28 years in prison after pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter. He is currently incarcerated at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, Calif. He was sentenced three years after running over a Compton businessman in January 2015, reported The Florida Times-Union.

The incident occurred outside of a burger stand after Knight got into it with Cle “Bone” Sloan, an activist and actor who was working on gang reform in Los Angeles. Sloan and Knight had beef with each other that went way back, but on this particular night, the argument was over the N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton. Knight had a problem with how he was being portrayed and took it up with Sloan, who was a consultant on the film.

The two traded blows while Knight was sitting inside his truck. He then put his vehicle in reverse and proceeded to knock down Sloan along with his friend Terry Carter. He managed to graze Sloan but ran over Carter completely, before fleeing the scene of the crime. Sloan suffered major injuries while Carter later died.

Knight will be eligible for parole in October 2034, though it stands to reason the Carter family will not want him walking free. Carter’s relatives were at the sentencing hearing, where they were permitted to give victim impact statements. “I ask that you sentence this unrepentant, remorseless, cold, callous menace to society to the maximum of 28 years,” said Carter’s daughter Crystal. She also referred to Knight as a “low-life thug,” ”career criminal” and “a disgusting, selfish disgrace to the human species.”

It would be safe to assume that Sloan feels the same way, but he told a judge in January 2015 that he would not snitch on Knight, per ABC 7. Despite the fact that he was granted immunity, Sloan refused to say a word.

He claimed that after Knight punched him, he recalled falling to the ground but had no recollection of how he got there. “I think both people were physically hitting each other, but hitting each other and running people over are two different things,” said Sloan’s attorney.

Sloan blamed himself for the death of his friend, saying he tries to forget but can’t. “I just know, I screwed up, and Terry’s dead,” he said.