Editing Suge Knight (section)

===Murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls: theories accusing Knight===
{{see also|Murder of Tupac Shakur|Murder of the Notorious B.I.G.}}
Though never charged by any prosecutor for any involvement, Suge Knight has been the subject of theories in popular culture about the murder of two well-known rap artists. [[Tupac Shakur]] was shot four times in a [[drive-by shooting]] in [[Las Vegas]], [[Nevada]] on September 7, 1996, and died six days later on September 13. When Shakur's [[Gangsta rap#East Coast hardcore hip hop and the East Coast–West Coast feud|East Coast rival]], [[The Notorious B.I.G.]] ([[Pseudonym|aka]] Biggie Smalls or Biggie), was murdered in a similar drive-by shooting in [[Los Angeles]], [[California]] on March 9, 1997, speculation arose that Knight was involved and that Biggie's death was a revenge killing.<ref name="Kading1">[http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/10/tupac_biggie_murder_video.php Video: Greg Kading's Book Says Sean Combs, Suge Knight Ordered Tupac and Biggie Killings] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130604011335/http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/10/tupac_biggie_murder_video.php |date=June 4, 2013 }} By LA Weekly Mon., October 3, 2011</ref> Former Death Row artists, including Snoop Dogg, also later accused Knight of being involved in Tupac's murder.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rapcentral.co.uk/snoopBeefs.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070329040342/http://www.rapcentral.co.uk/snoopBeefs.html|url-status=usurped|archive-date=March 29, 2007|title=RapCentral.co.uk - Snoop Dogg Beef Info for All His Beefs with Suge Knight, the Eastsidaz and More|date=March 29, 2007|access-date=September 22, 2018}}</ref>

Ex-detective [[Russell Poole]] conjectured that Knight had Tupac killed before he could part ways with Knight's label and then conspired to kill Biggie to divert attention from himself in the Tupac case.<ref name="Broomfield's Biggie and Tupac reviewed by the Courant">{{cite news|last=Danton|first=Eric|title=Biggie (rip) Vs. Tupac (rip)|url=http://articles.courant.com/2002-11-09/features/0211090122_1_tupac-shakur-jam-master-jay-death-row-records|access-date=November 8, 2013|newspaper=The Courant|date=November 9, 2003|archive-date=November 9, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131109010932/http://articles.courant.com/2002-11-09/features/0211090122_1_tupac-shakur-jam-master-jay-death-row-records|url-status=dead}}</ref> The Biggie murder theory implicated Knight, a rogue cop, and a mortgage broker named Amir Muhammad (who was never a police suspect) along with the chief of police and the LAPD in a conspiracy to murder and cover up the murder of Biggie. The Biggie theory formed the basis of a {{US$|500{{nbsp}}million}} lawsuit by his family, the Wallaces, against the city of Los Angeles. A key source for Poole's theory was Kevin Hackie. Hackie had implicated Knight and [[David Mack (police officer)|David Mack]]. Hackie, a former Death Row associate, said that he had knowledge of involvement between Knight and Mack and other LAPD officers. His information was used by the Wallace family in their suit against the city of L.A. for Biggie's death. But Hackie later told ''Los Angeles Times'' reporter [[Chuck Philips]] that the Wallace attorneys had altered his declarations.<ref name="Lawsuit witness admits to false declaration">{{cite news|last=Philips|first=Chuck|title=Witness in B.I.G. case says his memory's bad|url=http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-biggie20jun20,0,1053108.story|access-date=October 3, 2013|newspaper=LA Times|date=June 20, 2005}}</ref> The suit brought by the Wallace family against the city of L.A. based on the [[Russell Poole]] theory was dismissed in 2010.

In 2005, Chuck Philips of the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' reported that another source for the theory of Biggie's murder implicating Muhammad, Mack, Knight and the LAPD was a schizophrenic man known as "Psycho Mike" who later confessed to hearsay and memory lapses and falsely identifying Muhammad.<ref name="Chuck Philips on Biggie murder">{{cite news|last=Philips|first=Chuck|title=Informant in Rap Star's Slaying Admits Hearsay|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-jun-03-me-biggie3-story.html|access-date=September 15, 2013|newspaper=LA Times|date=June 3, 2005}}</ref> John Cook of ''[[Brill's Content]]'' noted that Philips's article "demolished" the Poole-Sullivan theory of Biggie's murder.<ref name="Notorious LAT; by original Brill's content author of eponymous article John Cook">{{cite web|last=Cook|first=John|title=Notorious LAT|url=http://www.referencetone.com/2005/06/notorious-lat.html|website=Referencetone.com|date=June 2005|access-date=October 26, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131002123203/http://www.referencetone.com/2005/06/notorious-lat.html|archive-date=October 2, 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Around the same time, Philips wrote an ''L.A. Times'' two-part series titled "Who Killed Tupac Shakur?" about the murder of Shakur and events surrounding it based on police affidavits, court documents and interviews.<ref name="who-killed-1">{{cite news|last=Philips|first=Chuck|title=Who Killed Tupac Shakur?|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-sep-06-fi-tupac6-story.html|access-date=July 15, 2012|newspaper=LA Times|date=September 6, 2002}}</ref><ref name="who-killed-2">{{cite news|last=Philips|first=Chuck|title=How Vegas police probe floundered in Tupac Shakur case|url=https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-fi-tupac7sep07-story.html|access-date=July 23, 2012|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=September 7, 2002}}</ref>

The ''L.A. Times'' story indicated that "the shooting was carried out by a Compton gang called the Southside [[Crips]] to avenge the beating of one of its members by Shakur a few hours earlier. [[Orlando Anderson]], the Crip whom Shakur had attacked, fired the fatal shots. Las Vegas police discounted Anderson as a suspect after questioning him once briefly. He was later killed in what police said was an unrelated gang shooting."<ref name="who-killed-1" /> The article implicated East Coast music figures, including Biggie, Shakur's nemesis at the time, alleging that he paid for the gun.<ref name="who-killed-1" /> Before their own deaths, Biggie, his family and Anderson denied any role in Shakur's murder. Biggie's family<ref name="B.I.G. Family Denies Tupac Murder Claim">{{cite news|last=Silveran|first=Stephen M.|title=B.I.G. Family Denies Tupac Murder Claim|url=http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,624628,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080321222244/http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,624628,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=March 21, 2008|access-date=July 23, 2012|newspaper=People|date=September 9, 2002}}</ref> produced documents purporting to show that the rapper was in New York and New Jersey at the time. ''The New York Times'' called the documents inconclusive, stating:

<blockquote>The pages purport to be three computer printouts from Daddy's House, indicating that Wallace was in the studio recording a song called ''Nasty Boy'' on the afternoon Shakur was shot. They indicate that Wallace ''wrote half the session'', was ''In and out/sat around'' and ''laid down a ref'', shorthand for a reference vocal, the equivalent of a first take. But nothing indicates when the documents were created. And Louis Alfred, the recording engineer listed on the sheets, said in an interview that he remembered recording the song with Wallace in a late-night session, not during the day. He could not recall the date of the session but said it was likely not the night Shakur was shot. ''We would have heard about it,'' Mr. Alfred said.<ref name="New York Times on Philips 2002 2-part series">{{cite news|last=Leland|first=John|title=New Theories Stir Speculation On Rap Deaths|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/07/arts/new-theories-stir-speculation-on-rap-deaths.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm|access-date=September 29, 2013|newspaper=New York Times|date=October 7, 2002}}</ref></blockquote>

Mark Duvoisin, an editor at the ''L.A. Times'', wrote in an opinion piece in ''Rolling Stone'' that Philips's account had withstood attacks to its credibility.<ref>{{cite news|last=Duvoisin|first=Mark|title=L.A. Times Responds to Biggie Story|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/l-a-times-responds-to-biggie-story-20060112|access-date=September 19, 2013|newspaper=Rolling Stone|date=January 12, 2006}}</ref>

However, the ''L.A. Times'' printed a full retraction of the two-part series and released Philips shortly thereafter during a wave of layoffs.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.laweekly.com/informer/2011/06/22/tupac-shakur-notorious-big-murders-and-ex-la-times-reporter-chuck-philips-a-timeline |date=June 22, 2011 |last=Wilson |first=Simone |title=Tupac Shakur, Notorious B.I.G. Murders and ex-LA Times Reporter Chuck Philips: A Timeline |newspaper=[[LA Weekly]]}}</ref>

In ''Tupac Shakur: Before I Wake'', a documentary by Tupac Shakur's bodyguard, he and [[Cathy Scott]], author of ''[[The Killing of Tupac Shakur]]'' and ''[[The Murder of Biggie Smalls]]'', said that Knight would not have placed himself in the path of bullets he knew were coming. On her website [https://web.archive.org/web/20120505065948/http://www.cathyscott.com/askarch.htm ''Archived Letters''] Scott responds to a reader of her book stating that she felt there was never evidence to link Knight to Tupac's murder. Scott also told ''CNN'', "That theory doesn't even add up. 'Open fire on my car, but try not to hit me?'"<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/04/08/biggie.smalls.files/|title=FBI reveals documents in Biggie Smalls death probe|work=cnn.com}}</ref>

A 2006 law-enforcement task force probe into Biggie's murder, which included then-LAPD Detective [[Greg Kading]], included the murder of Shakur. In his 2011 self-published book, ''Murder Rap'',<ref name="Murder Rap 2011">''Murder Rap: The Untold Story of the Biggie Smalls & Tupac Shakur Murder Investigations by the Detective Who Solved Both Cases'', Greg Kading, One Time Publishing, 2011. {{ISBN|0-9839554-8-4}} Retrieved January 8, 2012.</ref> Kading wrote that Duane "Keefe D" Davis, a member of the "Crips" street gang, gave a confession years later saying he rode in the car used in the Las Vegas shooting of Shakur.<ref name="Kading1" /><ref name="Kading2">{{cite web|url=https://www.laweekly.com/search|title=Los Angeles News and Events - Articles & Archives|website=Laweekly.com|date=July 16, 2009|access-date=September 22, 2018}}</ref> The Crips said they had been offered a million dollars by associates of Bad Boy Records to kill Shakur. Kading, who named Sean Combs as having been involved in the conspiracy, also wrote that a bounty was offered for Suge Knight's murder.<ref name="Kading1" />

While in Las Vegas, Kading's book stated, Davis and fellow Crips members crossed paths with a BMW carrying Knight and Shakur.<ref name="who-killed-1" /> The fatal shots were fired by Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, who sat on the side of the car closest to the BMW.

Kading alleged that Knight hired [[Wardell Fouse|Wardell "Poochie" Fouse]] to kill Biggie, Sean Combs' most valuable star, whose murder was done following a party at the Peterson Automotive Museum. Poochie later survived a murder attempt in 2000, but was killed in 2003.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Wardell Fouse, 43 - The Homicide Report |url=https://homicide.latimes.com/post/wardell-fouse/ |access-date=2023-04-01 |website=homicide.latimes.com |date=July 24, 2003 |language=en}}</ref> Charges were never brought against Fouse or Knight and the task force disbanded for reasons of "internal affairs".<ref name="Murder Rap 2011" />

After Shakur's death and the release of ''[[Tha Doggfather]]'', Snoop Dogg openly criticized Knight for the murder of Shakur and left the label in 1998.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Nostro|first1=Lauren|title=16 Label Changes That Shocked The Rap Game - Snoop Dogg Leaves Death Row|url=http://www.complex.com/music/2013/04/16-label-changes-that-shocked-the-rap-game/snoop-dogg-leaves-death-row|website=Complex.com|access-date=July 23, 2016|date=April 5, 2013}}</ref> He signed with [[Master P|Master P's]] [[No Limit Records]] and then formed his own record label, [[Doggystyle Records]]. In 2002, Snoop released the song "Pimp Slapp'd", in which he repudiated Knight and Death Row. In 2006, Snoop again attacked Knight verbally.<ref name="rollingstone2006" /> Knight responded, stating that Snoop was a "police informer" who "never goes to jail".<ref>{{cite book|last=Hombach|first=Jean|title=Tupac Amaru Shakur|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ueYgX5CN0rsC&pg=PT307|access-date=November 15, 2015}}</ref>