Nick Broomfield documentary explores new evidence and witnesses indicating LAPD played a key role
US audiences will be able to view Last Man Standing: Suge Knight and the Murders of Biggie & Tupac this month on the Starz channel. The film is a new Nick Broomfield-directed documentary that is a companion to his earlier (2002) Tupac & Biggie and premieres December 23rd. The film includes newly sourced footage taken at the time of the rap icons’ killings as well as evidence that suggests direct involvement of elements of the Los Angeles Police Department in the murder of Biggie Smalls. The documentary, produced by Compton resident Pam Brooks who had earlier worked with Broomfield on his Tales of The Grim Sleeper (2014), is a compelling look at gang culture as embodied and advanced by Death Row Records kingpin Suge Knight.
“After finishing Biggie & Tupac in 2002, I became increasingly troubled by the treatment of LAPD detective Russell Poole, who had come up with evidence that LAPD officers were involved in the hit on Biggie Smalls,” says Broomfield.
Poole, who suffered a massive heart attack in 2015 and died during a meeting at LA Sheriff’s Department headquarters, claimed that Knight, affiliated with the Mob Piru’s faction of the Bloods street gang, had LAPD officers in his employ and that they played a direct role in the murder of Notorious B.I.G.
Broomfield explains, “It was a tragic end that Russell didn’t deserve. However, a few years later people stated talking more freely after Suge Knight was sentenced.”
Knight is serving a 28-year sentence for manslaughter in connection with the hit and run death of music executive Terry Carter in the parking lot of a Compton fast food restaurant. That location was used in the filming of Straight Outta Compton, the 2015 biopic that tells the story of the rise of NWA, the legendary Compton-based rap group. Knight’s personal saga from early childhood through his current incarceration is detailed in Last Man Standing. He will not be eligible for parole until 2034. Broomfield told The Independent, “Now that Suge Knight’s behind bars, a lot of people are coming forward that were, frankly, frightened of getting killed before.”
Last Man Standing: Suge Knight and the Murders of Biggie & Tupac offers eyewitness accounts of the rise of Death Row Records and Knight’s consolidation of power. Tupac Shakur had been convicted of a sex abuse charge in connection with a gang rape that took place in New York in 1993 and was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. It was Suge Knight who facilitated his release from New York’s Clinton Correctional Facility and his move from Interscope to Death Row Records. Thereafter, Shakur was totally loyal to Knight and the Mob Piru Bloods.
The film presents a chilling account of the events surrounding the murders of both Tupac in Las Vegas and Biggie in Los Angeles almost exactly six months later, and the role Suge Knight played in those events. The film was released earlier this year in Britain where it was critically lauded.
