LOS ANGELES, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- Rap impresario Marion "Suge" Knight was not the target of more than a dozen search warrants executed Thursday at his homes and offices around Southern California and Las Vegas by Los Angeles County authorities.
Dozens of green-jacketed sheriff's deputies backed up by SWAT team members descended upon the offices of Knight's record label "Tha Row," formerly known as Death Row Records, at daybreak Thursday, tying up rush-hour traffic on Wilshire Boulevard and raising questions about his role in the investigation and whether or not there had been a break in the unsolved murders of rap stars Tupak Shakur and Notorious B.I.G.
It was not until late Thursday afternoon that sheriff's officials revealed that the probe was centered on the June 7 slaying of reputed Compton gang member Eric Daniels and that Knight was not a suspect in the case.
"There is no relationship between those investigations and this investigation," said Capt. Pete Amico, head of the sheriff's gang detail. "This is strictly a gang-related murder in the city of Compton."
Amico said the case stemmed from the murder in April of Alton McDonald, whom he described as an associate and employee of Knight, one of the founders of the hip-hop genre. McDonald, 37, was gunned down in a drive-by shooting while pumping gas in Los Angeles on the night of April 7.
McDonald's murder was followed in short order by Daniels' death two months later.
"We believe that on June 7, in retaliation for that (McDonald's) murder, Eric Daniels was murdered. The investigation of those homicides led today to the search warrants for 16 locations and the arrest warrants for eight individuals," said Amico.
The other raids were carried out at Knight's residences in Las Vegas and Malibu by deputies armed with both search and arrests warrants.
Three of eight individuals sought were taken into custody in connection with Daniels' murder, Amico said. Knight was not considered a suspect, and his attorney told reporters the rap mogul was cooperating in the probe.
Knight's Death Row Records was a key pioneer in the explosive growth of the "gangsta' rap" phenomenon that focused on gritty, often profane lyrics that many critics alleged glorified the street-gang lifestyle of drug use and violence.
Knight, who was released from prison last August after serving time for a parole violation, was behind the wheel of the car in which Shakur was shot to death in 1996 on the Las Vegas Strip; McDonald had been with Knight and Shakur earlier that evening when they became involved in a fracas in the lobby of the MGM Grand.
Notorious B.I.G., a New York-based rapper described as a rival of Shakur, was gunned down in Los Angeles in 1997.
The slayings gave rise to a number of conspiracy theories and increased publicity about a rivalry between East Coast and West Coast rappers that was seen as rife with hair-trigger violence.
While the investigation appeared Thursday to only involve fringe players in the Los Angeles rap scene, at least one rapper who witnessed the search at Tha Row was miffed at the show of police force and the accompanying media coverage.
"It's wrong that the police target West Coast hip-hop like this, making everything look like the Gambino family and that we're running drugs and doing everything wrong," the rapper, who identified himself as "L.A. Nash," told television station KABC as he watched the deputies. "This is a legal business."
