Missed Drug Tests: Suge Knight Sent to Jail

Six weeks after the shooting in Las Vegas, Suge Knight lost his freedom. On October 18, 1996, Judge John Ouderkirk in Los Angeles had issued an arrest warrant: The head of Death Row Records had reportedly failed to appear for drug tests and may have left the country without permission. Knight was on probation: In 1995, in proceedings surrounding an assault on two aspiring rappers at a recording studio in Hollywood (1992), he had pleaded no contest to the charges.

“He Doesn’t Like to Follow Rules”

On October 22, Knight appeared in court. Ouderkirk listed the missed appointments and recalled the 1992 assault, in which Knight had allegedly told one of the rappers at gunpoint that people do what he says. Knight may like to set such rules, but he does not like to follow them, the judge said, and ordered him held in custody until a bail hearing.

Knight stood up, handed credit cards, cash, belt, and tie to his lawyer David Kenner, and went into the holding cell. It was the beginning of a long imprisonment: In November, a surveillance video from the MGM Grand moved to the center of the proceedings.